Bears Crash the AI Party — and Sandals Too

Short sellers made bold moves this week. CBRS (Cerebras Systems) saw the biggest jump — SI % of Free Float surged from 6.3% to 25.6% in just seven days. Bears are clearly skeptical of the AI chip firm's $7.4B valuation.

The car rental trade is getting crowded. CAR (Avis Budget) now sits at 45.8% SI % FF, up 6.2pp in a week. HTZ (Hertz) follows at 44.5%, up 4.6pp. Oil-price fears and weak consumer spending are driving the thesis.

Birkenstock is the surprise name. BIRK shot up 8.4pp to 30.2% SI % FF. Cost to borrow is now 16.7% — one of the highest across mid-cap stocks. Availability of shares to borrow has collapsed to just 3.4% of SI, signaling a very tight squeeze setup.

Among perennial targets, WOLF (Wolfspeed) leads all large-cap stocks at 95.7% SI % FF. LCID (Lucid Group) holds at 34.2%.

Retail favourites are quiet. TSLA SI sits at 2.75%. GME ticked down to 12.8%. NVDA barely registers at 1.2% — bulls still dominating there.