VOOG has had an unusual week — short interest nearly doubled in a single session while the ETF dropped almost 5%, an uncommon pairing for a passive large-cap growth vehicle.
The borrowing story is the most interesting data point on VOOG right now. Short interest jumped 97% in one day on June 9, bringing the weekly gain to 41% and pushing the SI % of float to 2.2% — still low in absolute terms, but a sharp move for an ETF that was running below 0.4% of float just six weeks ago. The spike from under 305,000 shares short in late May to over 1 million by June 9 is not the profile of steady structural hedging. It reads more like a tactical hedge or a pairs trade being put on quickly. Borrow costs remain negligible at 0.47%, so there is no squeeze pressure. But availability has tightened meaningfully — from well above 600% a month ago to roughly 205% now — as demand for borrowed shares has risen faster than supply.
Options positioning does not amplify the bearish signal. The put/call ratio is running at 0.32, almost exactly in line with its 20-day average of 0.32, with a z-score near zero. That reading is well below the 52-week high of 0.39. Options traders are not adding downside protection at unusual rates, which contrasts with the sudden jump in short interest. The two signals are telling different stories: one group is actively increasing short exposure, while the broader options market shows no particular urgency to hedge.
The ORTEX short score has edged higher this week, climbing from 34.8 on June 1 to 43.8 on June 9. That is a notable ten-point rise in eight sessions. For context, the score had been trending lower through late May as short interest fell from a peak of roughly 3.6 million shares in mid-May back toward 300,000. The current rebuild brings the score back to where it was in early June — elevated relative to the past month, but far from extreme.
Institutional ownership data through March 31 shows a broad holder base. JPMorgan held 13.8% of shares, with a modest trim of 33,600 shares in Q1. Morgan Stanley added 250,500 shares over the same period. Raymond James built a new position of 339,606 shares, and Two Sigma initiated a 1.38 million share position — a quant-driven entry worth watching given the timing relative to the current SI rebuild. None of these moves are recent enough to explain the June borrowing activity, but Two Sigma's initiation in Q1 is consistent with the kind of tactical positioning that can generate sharp short-interest moves in subsequent quarters.
What to watch next: whether the short interest rebuild continues at this pace into mid-June, or whether it reverts toward the 300,000-500,000 share range that characterised late May — the latter would suggest the June 9 spike was a single-session event rather than the start of a more sustained tactical positioning shift.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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