Capricor Therapeutics heads into the weekend with a stock that bounced 3% on Friday but remains 18% below where it traded a month ago — and a short position that has stabilised rather than retreated.
The bear campaign's deceleration, first flagged earlier this week, continued through Friday's close. Short interest reads 24.8% of the free float as of June 11 — up fractionally from the 24.2% reading cited in Wednesday's note, but still well below the 25.1% peak hit on June 4. The ORTEX short score has edged back up to 73.9, recovering slightly from the 73.2 trough earlier this week, though it remains below the 74.3 cycle high. The pattern is consolidation, not retreat: bears accumulated aggressively through May, stalled in early June, and have not meaningfully covered. With a days-to-cover of 14.3 per the latest FINRA fortnightly data, any forced unwind would be slow and expensive. The borrow market, though, continues to offer bears little friction. Cost to borrow has eased to 0.49% — down about 10% on the week and back near the low end of a range that has held between 0.43% and 0.64% for the past six weeks. Availability has loosened further to 235%, up from roughly 197% two weeks ago when the lending pool looked most constrained. That combination — heavy short interest but cheap, available borrow — means the setup favours sustained pressure over a violent squeeze.
Options traders are not hedging for a recovery. The put/call ratio reads 0.40, almost exactly in line with its 20-day average of 0.40, and the z-score is negligible at -0.36. That near-perfect neutrality is its own read: with the stock down 18% in a month and 25% of the float short, there is no unusual demand for upside calls. The 52-week PCR high of 3.16 — an extreme reading hit during a prior episode of defensive positioning — underscores just how unbothered options markets are right now. Buyers are not rushing to pick the bottom.
The institutional picture adds a layer of complexity. Several active managers built new positions or added materially in Q1. Suvretta Capital added nearly 2.9 million shares to reach a 6.6% stake. Tang Capital doubled its position to 5.9% of shares. Vanguard Capital Management opened a fresh 3.5% position. Those are meaningful accumulation signals from names that run concentrated biotech books. Against them, Point72 cut its holding by just over one million shares — the most notable reduction in the top-15 holder list. BlackRock and State Street both added modestly through May, suggesting passive flows remain supportive. The net picture is a stock with a high-conviction short base sitting alongside a roster of active longs who were willing buyers at prices 20–30% above current levels.
The insider record is worth noting in context. The CFO and General Counsel each sold 25,000 shares on May 1 at roughly $31.70, and a director sold just over 53,000 shares on April 1 at $31. All three transactions came near the recent highs, before the May earnings sell-off. None have since bought. The Q1 earnings print itself — a 4.9% one-day drop extending to a 15.6% five-day drawdown — gave bears the fundamental narrative they needed, and the next scheduled print is August 6.
With the short position plateaued rather than unwinding, borrow conditions comfortable, and options markets showing no urgency in either direction, the August 6 earnings date is the next meaningful test of whether the bear thesis — built on a 2025 EPS miss and cash runway concerns — has further to run or whether the DMD trial data that bulls are watching can shift the balance.
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