Options traders are piling into BBAI calls at a two-year peak rate. The put/call ratio hit 0.33 on May 28 — its lowest in two years and more than two standard deviations below the 20-day mean. The stock jumped 13% in a single session and is up 32% over the past month.
What makes the options signal striking is what it sits alongside: one of the tightest borrow markets in the stock's recent history.
Availability on BBAI shares stands at just 3.8% of short interest — meaning there are fewer than 4 borrowable shares for every 100 already lent out. Earlier this week, availability touched 0.3%, effectively zero. The borrow market has been critically tight for most of May, with availability below 5% on the majority of trading days since May 11.
Cost to borrow has eased — down 34% over the past week to 2.1% APR — but that decline reflects the broader short covering now underway, not a loosening of supply. Short interest fell 12.5% in the past week to 28.2% of free float. That is still a deeply shorted stock. At its peak this month, over 141 million shares were short.
Short sellers are covering. Options buyers are piling in on the call side. These two flows are pointing in the same direction — upward pressure on the stock — but they come from different starting points.
The PCR z-score of -2.17 indicates call buying well outside the recent norm. The 52-week PCR range runs from 0.26 to 0.44. At 0.33, the market is clearly skewed toward upside bets. The ORTEX short score sits at 71.5, near recent highs, reflecting the continued tension in the lending market even as some shorts exit.
Earnings are due June 9. That date will be on both short sellers' and call buyers' minds.
The backdrop for this rally is complicated. BBAI cut its full-year revenue guidance to $125–$140 million from $160–$180 million last year. Q3 2025 revenue of $33.1 million was well below the prior-year $41.5 million. Gross margin compressed to 22.4%.
Analyst coverage is thin. Cantor Fitzgerald holds a Neutral rating with a $5 target. HC Wainwright keeps a Buy at $6. Both lowered targets in March. The CFO sold $43,300 worth of shares on May 22, shortly after the CEO and General Counsel did the same in early April.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open BBAI on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
