SoFi Technologies has given back last week's rally and shorts have used the retreat to press further — with earnings now just one week away.
The price told a different story last week. SOFI closed Friday at $18.22 after a 17% surge. This week the stock reversed, closing at $16.47 — down 7.2% on the week. That decline has coincided with a meaningful build in short conviction. Short interest climbed to 15.9% of the free float, up 7.8% on the week and 15.2% over the past month. Bears did not cover into last week's rally. They did not cover during this week's slide either. The short base is now at its largest level in the 30-day window, and the ORTEX short score has edged up to 67.6 — its highest reading in the tracked history — confirming the direction of travel.
The borrow market, however, has turned meaningfully tighter since the prior note. Availability has dropped sharply to 79.6%, down from 125% last week and from readings above 186% in early May. That shift is notable: less than one share is now available for every 1.25 already borrowed. The 52-week low for availability is this week's reading — today is the tightest the lending pool has been all year. Cost to borrow remains low at 0.51%, so the squeeze trigger is not yet lit. But the direction is clear. Availability has been compressing steadily since mid-May even as short interest has grown, which means the lending pool is tightening into a larger short position — a setup that warrants watching. Options data adds another layer of caution. The put/call ratio has jumped to 0.49, nearly three standard deviations above its 20-day mean of 0.44. That is the highest defensive reading of the past year, and it has arrived in the same week the stock fell and shorts added — three positioning signals pointing in the same direction.
The Street's view has not shifted materially, but the post-earnings target cuts from late April and early May define the frame. Most firms kept their ratings intact while trimming targets: Citi held its Buy but cut from $37 to $30, Needham stayed at Buy but dropped from $33 to $25, and Truist held its Hold while cutting to $17. The mean target now sits at $21.00 against a current price of $16.47 — implying roughly 28% upside on paper. That gap looks wide for a stock trading on a PE of 24.7x with a price-to-book of 1.84x and no dividend. The bull case rests on refinancing tailwind and Galileo's fee diversification; the bear case centres on lending concentration, credit cycle exposure, and regulatory risk. Neither has shifted enough to move consensus since April's earnings miss.
Insider activity remains the one unambiguously bullish data point in this setup. CEO Anthony Noto bought roughly $250,000 worth of shares in both early May purchases — $16.00 and $15.73 — and those purchases helped frame the floor from which last week's rally launched. The stock has since given back most of those gains and is now trading just 3–4% above where Noto bought. The net insider position over 90 days remains positive. The other insider trades in the window are routine sell programmes from EVPs following awards — not directional signals. BlackRock holds 5.4% of shares, the largest disclosed institutional block, with a small addition in the most recent reporting period.
The earnings print on June 17 is the pivot. The last Q1 report triggered a 12.3% single-day drop and a further 11.2% decline over the following five days — a pattern worth keeping in mind as shorts build and options traders hedge. What the next release will reveal is whether SoFi's loan growth trajectory has stabilised enough to justify analyst targets that sit well above current levels, or whether another miss extends the gap between the bull case and the trading reality.
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