GRPN fell another 11% on Friday to close at $16.46, extending a weekly loss of nearly 19% — yet the short base has barely moved, and the borrow market remains almost completely frozen.
The most striking feature of this week's data is what hasn't happened. SI has ticked up slightly, now running at 31.9% of the free float — up 1.4% on the week and essentially flat on the month after modest covering in May. Previous notes documented how shorts began trimming into the stock's pullback from its highs above $20. That covering has now stalled. Despite a near-20% weekly decline to $16.46, established short positions aren't rushing for the exit. That's a notable shift from the gradual-unwind dynamic flagged just days ago.
The borrow market corroborates that picture of entrenched positioning. Availability has recovered only marginally to 1.5% — up from the 0.57% floor hit in late May, but still deep in "almost fully locked" territory by any measure. For every hundred shares out on loan, roughly one and a half remain available to borrow. The lending pool has been at or near full capacity for over a month. Cost to borrow, at 1.57%, is unchanged from the prior note and offers no relief signal — it has traded in a narrow 1.1%–2.0% band since April, implying the borrow market is tight but not yet in distress. The ORTEX short score of 76 keeps GRPN ranked at the 4th percentile on short-score rank, marking it as one of the more heavily shorted names in the universe.
The Street remains split, with Goldman Sachs maintaining a Sell and a $13 target — a call that looks increasingly vindicated after this week's drawdown. Goldman last raised that target on May 12, moving it from $10 to $13 after Q1 results. Bullish analysts at Northland and Roth have targets in the $40s, but those reflect data from August and June 2025 respectively and should be treated as stale given the stock's current trajectory. The mean target of $26.33 sits well above the current price, but the dispersion is so wide that the average provides little directional signal. On valuation, the PE has compressed sharply — down 2.8 turns over 30 days to 9.8x, while EV/EBITDA has pulled in to 8.2x. The earnings yield factor scores in the bottom 3rd percentile, and quality remains weak on any composite measure.
Options traders aren't reading this as a distressed setup. The put/call ratio is running at 0.37 — right at its 20-day average of 0.38 and near its 52-week low of 0.36. There is no rush for downside protection despite the steep price decline. That complacency is notable: with a stock falling this hard, a PCR near its annual floor implies options participants either consider the move overdone or hold limited directional conviction. It does not suggest hedging demand.
Insider activity, when it last appeared in late May, showed the COO and CFO each selling into the stock's strength near $14.89 on May 1 — with a combined $1.4m in net open-market value realised over the past 90 days. The CEO received a 345,000-share award on the same date with no open-market purchase, offering no contrarian signal. Pale Fire Capital SE remains the anchor holder at 26.8% of shares, with no reported change in their position as of May 1.
Next quarter's earnings are pencilled in for August 6. With the stock now roughly 20% below where Q1 results landed in May — an event that produced a one-day gain of over 12% — how management frames the revenue and billings outlook for the second half will be the central question.
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