PONY has added another 16% this week — yet short sellers are not budging, leaving the stock in the same unresolved standoff that defined last week's note.
The price move is the headline. PONY closed at $10.83 on Tuesday, up 16% over the past five trading days and 9.5% over the past month. That follows the post-earnings bounce after Q1 results on May 26 showed a dramatic beat on losses but a hard miss on revenue. The stock has now recovered substantially from its January peak lows — and short sellers, who were already at their heaviest positioning since listing, are sitting on mounting mark-to-market losses.
The positioning picture has shifted modestly but not decisively. Short shares edged down less than 1% on the day to around 27.2 million — but over the past week they are still up nearly 4%, and up roughly 5.4% over the past month. The ORTEX short score holds at 72.8, barely off its recent highs around 73.6. What has changed is borrow availability: it has loosened to 72.4% from 62% a week ago and from a May 27 trough of just 51.5%. That easing suggests some short sellers returned shares into the rally rather than adding aggressively — but the aggregate short count has not fallen meaningfully. Cost to borrow, at 0.78%, remains low and has barely moved. For now, the borrow market is not imposing pain on shorts; they are simply underwater on the trade.
Options traders are conspicuously calm. The put/call ratio is 0.18 — running near the 52-week low of 0.12 and well below its 52-week high of 1.16. That is close to neutral on a z-score basis (0.22 standard deviations above the 20-day mean), suggesting options participants are neither hedging aggressively nor expressing strong directional conviction. In a week where the stock rose 16%, the absence of call-buying enthusiasm is at least mildly notable.
The Street's read on PONY remains structurally bullish but the analyst coverage is not fresh. The most recent action of note was HSBC initiating with a Buy at $16.60 in late March, and Barclays cutting its target to $10 from $15 at the same time while staying at Equal-Weight. The mean price target across coverage is $20.91 — nearly double the current price — which points to considerable implied upside in consensus models. But coverage is sparse, and several initiation targets date back to late 2025; those numbers should be treated with some caution given how much the stock has moved since listing.
Among the institutional holder base, the most interesting recent move is Goldman Sachs trimming its position by 4.3 million shares to just under 5 million as of mid-May. HongShan Capital and Morningside both added material positions in Q1, and Fidelity (FMR) added nearly 2 million shares through April. The ownership mix — strategic holder Toyota Motor at 9.8%, founders Jun Peng and Tiancheng Lou controlling nearly 19% combined — means the float is relatively constrained, which amplifies the effect of short positioning relative to what the headline share count suggests.
What to watch: the next earnings event is flagged for late August, leaving three months of tape without a scheduled fundamental catalyst. With short interest elevated, borrow availability loosening after a tight spell, and options pricing in little drama, the near-term story is whether the week's rally draws fresh short sellers back in — or whether the shrinking availability pool from last month reasserts itself.
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