LCID enters the week with a borrow market that has essentially shut — and a stock down 17% in five days as short sellers hold their ground.
The lending picture is about as tight as it gets. Availability has collapsed to just 0.11% of shares on loan — meaning for every 900 shares already borrowed, only one remains available to lend. That is a near-total lockout, and it has persisted for weeks: availability has been below 0.5% on almost every session since early May. Cost to borrow is running at 12.7%, up roughly 14% over the past month, reflecting the sustained pressure on the lending pool. This is not a fresh squeeze — it is a structural condition that has been entrenched for some time, with no meaningful relief in sight based on recent history.
Short interest itself tells a slightly more nuanced story. At 18% of the free float — about 58 million shares — bears have actually trimmed positions modestly this week, down roughly 4% from the week prior. The month-on-month picture is different: short interest jumped 25% through May as the stock fell from around $6.30 toward $5. The days-to-cover reading of 4.3 from the most recent FINRA fortnightly confirms this is a heavily shorted name. Options are not adding much signal here — the put/call ratio of 1.33 is almost exactly in line with its 20-day average, showing no fresh defensive surge. Bears already hold their positions; they have not needed to hedge further through the options market.
The Street reflects growing frustration with execution. The consensus is a sell, and the direction of recent analyst moves has been uniformly negative — Citigroup trimmed its target from $17 to $14 in mid-May while keeping a Buy, and TD Cowen cut its target from $10 to $7 at the same time. Benchmark downgraded outright to Hold in early May. The bull case rests on reinstating 2026 guidance next quarter, Uber's 9.7% stake (added in April), and an autonomous vehicle opportunity that a 10-year DCF values at $14 per share. The bear case is the present: suspended guidance, a CEO transition, negative gross margins, and a delivery shortfall that has given shorts little reason to cover. ORTEX factor scores capture the tension precisely — EPS momentum over 30 days ranks in the 96th percentile (the guidance suspension reset expectations sharply downward, making any beat easier), but the short score rank sits in just the 3rd percentile, placing LCID among the most heavily shorted names in the entire universe.
The institutional structure is unusual and worth noting. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund holds 45% of shares outstanding, providing a floor of sorts but also limiting true free float considerably. Uber's recently disclosed 9.7% stake — a fresh addition in April — adds a strategic dimension that pure EV investors may not have fully priced. Against that backdrop, insider activity has been exclusively in one direction: the acting CEO, acting CFO, and CFO all sold shares on June 5, though in small dollar amounts that look more like routine equity compensation liquidations than conviction selling.
The next scheduled catalyst is the Q2 earnings print on August 5. The earnings history is unambiguous — the last three post-earnings moves were down 10.6%, down 3.2%, and down 7.5% on the day, with the five-day reaction also negative in the two cases where data is available. Peers have offered little cover this week: XPEV fell 13.5% and TSLA dropped 6.4%, so LCID's 16.5% decline is worse but not entirely idiosyncratic. Whether the August print brings reinstated guidance — the single variable the bull case depends on most — will determine whether the borrow market stays locked or finally begins to loosen.
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