Cerebras Systems listed on Nasdaq just two weeks ago at $185, opened at $350, and is already handing back a significant chunk of those gains — down 20% on the week to $241.71.
The post-IPO unwind is the central tension this week. The stock's debut was one of the more explosive AI hardware listings in recent memory, and the pullback has arrived fast. The 6% single-day drop to close out Tuesday layered on top of an already bruising weekly decline. For a stock that had briefly traded at nearly twice its IPO price, the retreat is meaningful.
The sharpest data point this week is not the price action — it's the insider activity. Within days of going public, the founding team sold in size. CEO Andrew Feldman sold 107,076 shares at the IPO price of $185 on May 13, raising just under $20 million. Co-founder and CTO Sean Lie sold 96,127 shares for approximately $17.8 million at the same price. COO Dhiraj Mallick sold 491,091 shares at $185 — the largest single transaction in the group at $90.9 million. The Chief Accounting Officer also sold $3.5 million worth of stock on the same day. Combined, four executives cleared roughly $132 million on May 13 alone, all at the IPO price while the market was pricing shares at multiples above that level. The net insider disposition over the past 90 days totals $132 million. These were likely pre-arranged IPO lockup constructs, but the optics of the founding team immediately monetising at the offer price while retail buyers were paying $300+ is a story the market has noticed.
The lending market tells a more nuanced story. Cost to borrow has collapsed — from nearly 20% on May 15 to just 2.1% now, a 54% decline on the week. That indicates supply for borrows has increased dramatically in a short period, consistent with newly tradeable IPO shares entering the lending pool. Availability runs at 136% of outstanding short interest, meaning there is ample room for additional short positions to be established. The ORTEX short score is elevated at 64, down slightly from a recent peak near 67 but still in territory that reflects meaningful skepticism. The borrow market is no longer expensive or constrained — if bearish conviction builds, establishing and maintaining a short position has become significantly cheaper and easier.
Options positioning sits at its most defensive since the stock began trading. The put/call ratio has climbed to 0.90, near its five-session high of 0.92 hit Thursday. For a stock that opened with a PCR of zero on its first trading day — reflecting an almost entirely bullish options skew — the rapid shift toward near-parity between puts and calls is notable. The options market has repriced the risk profile within days of the IPO, which aligns with the broader sentiment shift.
The institutional register captures the pre-IPO venture holders almost entirely. FMR (Fidelity) leads with 9.5% of shares, followed by Foundation Capital, Benchmark, and Eclipse Operations — all early backers. Tiger Global holds 1.6%. None of these positions show prior-period comparisons since the company only just became publicly traded, so it is too early to read institutional direction from the data. What is visible is that the top of the register is dominated by long-duration venture and growth investors who came in at prices well below the current level — their cost basis reduces the conviction threshold for further monetisation.
The headline risk ahead involves the cost-to-borrow trajectory and whether short interest builds materially from current levels. With availability now comfortable and borrowing cheap, the structural barriers to shorting have all but disappeared since IPO day. The ORTEX short score has been rising steadily since listing; whether that arc continues into the next reporting cycle will be the key positioning signal to track.
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