Intuitive Machines spent the past 24 hours sending every bearish indicator higher — simultaneously. Short interest climbed to 27% of float. The put/call ratio held at a 52-week high. And earnings land in seven days.
Since yesterday's note flagged the initial defensive pivot, the data has moved further in the same direction. This is not the same story — it has escalated.
Short interest rose to 27.0% of float on May 27 — up from roughly 23% reported yesterday and an 11.8% build over the past week alone. The stock gained 19.8% over that same week. Bears are adding exposure directly into the rally, not retreating.
The ORTEX short score sits at 68.7, placing LUNR in the 4th percentile for short score rank — meaning it screens as more heavily shorted than 96% of the universe.
The put/call ratio printed 0.7269 on May 27 — a fresh 52-week high, and more than 3.3 standard deviations above its 20-day mean of 0.40. The prior session's 0.68 reading had already been the highest in a year. Two consecutive days at these extremes suggests this is positioning, not noise.
Earnings are confirmed for June 4. The last two earnings prints delivered a -5% one-day move (May 2026) and a +10.8% move (May 2026, prior period). With the stock up 58% in one month going in, the stakes are asymmetric.
Availability edged up to 18.7% on May 27 from the 8.8% reading the prior day — still tight, but off the most extreme levels of recent weeks. The 52-week minimum availability touched 0.33%, showing how severe squeezes have been. Cost to borrow has fallen sharply: 0.52% APR, down 43% on the week. Plenty of short demand, but new borrow has been added to the pool.
Founder and Chairman Kamal Ghaffarian sold approximately $4.9M in shares on May 18 alone, continuing a pattern of consistent selling into the rally. Net insider selling over 90 days totals roughly $24.9M.
Analysts are moving the other way. Four firms raised price targets in the past two weeks — Cantor Fitzgerald to $43, Canaccord to $41, B. Riley to $45, Roth Capital to $50. The mean target is $40.78, essentially at current price ($40.34). The market has caught up to analyst expectations with earnings still ahead.
June 4 is the collision point: a stock up 58% in a month, short interest at 27% of float, a founder selling, and options traders hedging at 52-week extremes. The EPS surprise percentile sits at 97 — LUNR has historically beaten estimates — but market expectations are now materially higher than they were at prior reports.
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