SPGP, the Invesco S&P 500 GARP ETF, is drifting slightly lower on the week — but the more interesting development is in the lending market, where borrow costs have more than tripled in a month while availability has pulled back sharply.
The borrow story is the standout here. Cost to borrow has climbed to 2.0%, up 83% over the past week and more than 230% higher than a month ago. That is a striking move for a passive ETF. Availability has tightened in tandem, dropping 15% on the week to 288% — still firmly in "normal" territory, but the directional shift is notable given that availability was running above 500% as recently as late May. The 52-week low for availability is 33%, so there is room for the pool to constrict further. For context, short interest itself remains negligible — just 0.07% of the float — so this is not a crowded short. The rising borrow cost likely reflects episodic hedging demand rather than a structural shift.
Options positioning reinforces a broadly relaxed picture. The put/call ratio is running at 0.24, essentially flat with its 20-day average of 0.245, and well below the 52-week high of 1.25 reached during periods of genuine market stress. There is no defensive spike in options — the market is not paying up to hedge this one.
The ORTEX short score has edged higher over the past two weeks, moving from around 41.6 at the end of May to 44.6 now. That remains comfortably in the middle of the range. The direction of travel is worth watching — a score drifting higher on rising borrow costs hints at incrementally more demand for short exposure — but at these absolute levels the signal is modest rather than alarming. The fund itself is up about 2.2% over the past month and closed at $119.96, off less than 1% on the week.
As a GARP-strategy ETF targeting S&P 500 names with strong earnings growth at reasonable valuations, SPGP tends to sit between pure growth and pure value in sentiment terms. That positioning usually keeps short interest low and lending conditions loose. The question worth monitoring is whether the borrow-cost acceleration continues — if availability tightens toward the 100% range or below while the short score keeps drifting up, it would suggest more purposeful positioning is building around the fund's underlying names.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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