The short position in FXI just jumped 31% in a single day. That is the largest one-day spike on record. Availability has collapsed to 9.6% — down from 46% just one week ago.
Since the May 20 article noted a seized borrow market and 27.6% SI, the situation has materially worsened on every dimension.
Short interest now stands at 35.7% of free float — up from 27.3% a week ago and 24.7% a month ago. The one-month increase is 44.9%. This is no longer a gradually building position. Shorts are piling in aggressively and all at once.
The borrow market reflects that urgency. Availability sits at 9.6% — roughly one share available for every ten already borrowed. As recently as May 14, availability was above 70%. As recently as late April, it was above 200%. The pool has effectively been drained in under two weeks.
Cost to borrow has followed. It rose 76% in the past week to 1.18% annually. In absolute terms that remains low — shorts are not yet paying a punishing rate. But the velocity of the move is the signal. CTB has more than doubled from its late-April level of roughly 0.45–0.50%.
The most recent institutional data, from the Q1 filing period, shows the holder base pulling in opposite directions. Morgan Stanley trimmed by 4.7 million shares. UBS cut its position by 9.2 million shares. Those are large reductions.
On the other side, Citigroup added 6.3 million shares. Goldman Sachs added 2.9 million. Brevan Howard — a macro hedge fund — entered a fresh 6.0 million share position from zero.
That split is significant. The new long holders are macro-oriented names. The cuts came from asset managers. The divergence in positioning mirrors the divergence in the broader view on China.
The put/call ratio sits at 0.90, below its 20-day mean of 0.97. The PCR z-score is -0.70 — slightly more calls than average. Options traders are not expressing the same urgency as the lending market. That divergence between a maxed-out borrow pool and a relatively unbothered options market is worth watching.
The ORTEX short score holds at 67.9 — elevated, and stable over the past two weeks rather than spiking.
Availability is at 9.6% and falling. The 52-week low sits at 2.3%, so there is still room to tighten further. If availability approaches that floor and CTB accelerates above 2–3%, the cost of maintaining the short position changes meaningfully. The record-high SI level means any reversal in sentiment — macro data, a policy shift out of Beijing, a broader risk-on move — lands against an unusually crowded short base.
Data summary
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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