Ondas Inc. has given back much of its squeeze-driven gains — down 21% on the week and 13% on Friday alone — as the borrow market has opened up and insiders continue distributing into strength.
The shift in the lending market is the clearest structural change from a week ago. Availability was pinned at 0% for most of May, meaning every share in the lending pool was on loan. That freeze helped fuel the rally. It has now cracked open to 12.7% — still tight, but a meaningful change from the locked conditions that made short covering so costly. For context, availability briefly touched 18% in late April before collapsing entirely around May 19; the current reading marks a return toward those earlier levels. Short interest has edged down with it, falling roughly 3% over the past month to 41.8% of the free float — high by any measure, but off the ~47% peak seen in late May. Cost to borrow has eased to 1.55% from a mid-week peak near 2.2%, reflecting the loosening supply. The options market tells a similar story: the put/call ratio has drifted below its 20-day average to 0.47, about 1.3 standard deviations on the call-heavy side — less defensive than usual, but with a year-low of 0.08, still far from extreme bullishness. Positioning overall has shifted from locked-and-squeezed to cautiously re-opening.
The insider picture complicates the bull case. CEO Eric Brock received a 4.5 million share award on June 1, then sold 2.38 million shares the very next day at $13.43 — raising roughly $32 million. That sale, covered in the June 3 note, remains the dominant insider signal. Smaller sells from two directors and the COO also went through on May 20 near $9.70. Net 90-day insider activity shows about 2.4 million shares added on balance, but that figure is almost entirely the equity award rather than open-market conviction buying. The pattern — award then distribute into strength — has repeated, and the stock trading at $10.43 now is well below the $13.43 level at which the CEO sold.
The Street remains constructive in tone but analysts are not pushing this higher. Needham reiterated its Buy with a $23 target on May 19, the most recent action on record. Northland lifted its target to $18 in late March. The mean target across coverage is $20.13 — roughly double the current price — yet the stock's factor scores flag the fundamental tensions: the EPS surprise rank is in the 1st percentile, the short score rank in the 2nd percentile, and the ORTEX short score itself has been remarkably stable around 69 for the past two weeks. Analysts see growth potential via the Omnisys acquisition and the 2026 pipeline; bears point to ongoing losses (EV/EBITDA of -90x), dilution risk, and the gap between guidance optimism and commercial delivery. The negative earnings yield and deeply negative PE make valuation a matter of faith in the growth story rather than current numbers.
Peers have also pulled back sharply, which provides some context for the week's move. MOB fell 18% on the week. CHAI dropped 21%. VSAT lost 17%. LTRX fell 13%. The sector-wide pressure means ONDS is not uniquely punished — but with 41.8% of the float still short and availability only partially re-opened, the next catalyst to watch is whether short interest continues to bleed lower as availability widens further, or whether newly available borrow invites fresh positions to be established at a lower price.
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