Cerebras Print Arrives With Borrow at Its Tightest and Bulls at $340

CBRS reports after the close Thursday with the stock up 10% on the week and the lending market at its tightest reading since listing.

The borrow story has moved materially since the prior article. Availability has dropped to just 20.5% — meaning for every five shares already lent out, barely one remains in the pool. That marks the lowest availability reading in the past year. A month ago, availability ran above 200%; it has since compressed by more than 90%. Short interest jumped more than fourfold in a single session on June 9, with shares short climbing from roughly 1.9 million to 8.4 million overnight. Cost to borrow has eased from a mid-May peak above 19% to around 1.1%, but that compression in rate coincides with the sharp tightening in supply — fewer shares are available, not cheaper to find. The ORTEX short score jumped to 67 on June 9, up from the mid-50s where it had sat for weeks, reflecting the abrupt shift in positioning.

Options, however, tell a different story. The put/call ratio has been trending steadily lower through June, falling from above 0.90 in late May to 0.58 heading into the print. That trajectory points to growing call demand relative to puts — investors reaching for upside rather than protecting against downside. The PCR is now closer to its 52-week low of 0.0 than its high of 0.92, a sharp contrast with the tightening borrow market. The two signals point in opposite directions: the lending market is signalling rising short conviction, while options flow is skewing toward bulls.

The analyst side is uniformly constructive. Ten firms initiated coverage over two days last week, every one at Buy, Outperform, or Overweight. Citigroup set the highest target at $340; Morgan Stanley came in at $250; the consensus mean is now $293, roughly 24% above Wednesday's close of $237.33. Bulls are focused on Cerebras's custom silicon position in large-model inference, its partnerships with OpenAI and AWS, and a projected revenue and profit inflection through 2027. Bears flag the capital intensity of the dedicated-capacity model, reliance on third-party suppliers, and the threat of larger incumbents encroaching on its niche. The CEO and COO both sold stock in May at $185 — well below current levels — though those sales occurred before the initiation wave and the subsequent 28% price move.

Thursday's print will test whether Cerebras can show a revenue trajectory that justifies both the unanimous analyst conviction and the $237 price tag that has now moved above most of the freshly-set targets.