IREN dropped 15.6% over the past week to $47.74 — and the options market just posted its most defensive reading of the year.
The clearest new development this week is in options sentiment. The put/call ratio jumped to 0.73 on Tuesday, well above its 20-day average of 0.63 and the sharpest defensive tilt since the current trading range began. The z-score of 2.83 puts this reading nearly three standard deviations above the norm — the highest in a year, approaching the 52-week peak of 0.84. That's a meaningful shift from the prior two weeks, when options positioning remained relatively relaxed despite the short buildup. Investors are now paying noticeably more for downside protection.
The short side of the ledger remains the dominant story, though the pace of accumulation has slowed. Short interest ended the week at 23.1% of free float — 65.5 million shares — up 5.5% on the week and 21.8% over the past month. That's a continuation of the trend documented in recent notes: shorts have added roughly 20 million shares since early April. The ORTEX short score is 67.5, placing IREN in the 7th percentile for short score rank, meaning almost all stocks in its universe carry less short pressure. What's changed is the borrow environment. Availability tightened hard to 21.5% mid-week before loosening back to 41.9% by Tuesday — that's still tight territory, with fewer than one share available per two already borrowed. The 52-week low availability reading is 0.28%, so there is room for conditions to tighten further. Cost to borrow remains low at 0.57% APR, down from the mid-week peak near 0.86%, giving no signal of a borrow squeeze.
The Street is the countervailing force. Most analysts remain bullish, and recent target raises are pointed. Macquarie lifted its target to $90 and JP Morgan raised its Underweight target to $46 — divergent ratings, but both moving higher. HC Wainwright and BTIG both raised Buy targets to $85 and $80 respectively in early May. The consensus mean target is $75, implying around 57% upside from current levels. The bull case centres on IREN's 1.6GW Oklahoma data center campus, the $2.3B annualized revenue run-rate already under contract, and AI cloud services momentum. Bears point to Sweetwater strategic uncertainty, bitcoin price exposure, and a quality score of just 27 out of 100 — reflecting negative ROA and FCF as the company burns capital in its infrastructure ramp. The EV/EBITDA multiple has compressed to 16.9x, down roughly 1.4x over 30 days as the stock has sold off.
Peers offered a mixed backdrop. RIOT fell 7.6% on the week and HUT lost 13%, suggesting sector-wide pressure. CIFR dropped 6.3%. But CLSK gained 9.1% and HIVE surged 18% — so the sector is not uniformly weak. IREN's underperformance relative to the better-performing names points to its elevated short position amplifying the drawdown rather than sector forces alone driving it.
Institutional flows from Q1 filings show some divergence. Defiance ETFs added a full 12.7 million shares — an entirely new position. BlackRock added 3.8 million shares through April. On the other side, D.E. Shaw trimmed 5.3 million shares and Morgan Stanley cut its position by 3.6 million. The insider data is stale — the last reported trades were co-CEO share sales back in September 2025 — so no fresh signal there.
The next earnings event is on August 28. With options now flashing their most defensive posture in a year, short interest entrenched above 23%, and availability tightened back into the tight zone after briefly easing, the week ahead is squarely focused on whether the post-earnings short build continues to press or whether the gap between the $47.74 print and a $75 analyst consensus begins to reassert itself.
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