Current lineups
Please enjoy this fine menu of currently fucked shorts.
u/lupina101 — 2 days ago
What if I told you NEGG is going to bust wide open again?
NEGG Is Winding Up Again. I Think Round 4 Is Coming.
I posted about $NEGG before the last major run because the short data was getting increasingly difficult to ignore. Shortly afterward, the stock ripped and the trade paid. I am watching it again, and I think NEGG is quietly rebuilding another legitimate squeeze setup.
NEGG is trading around $19, and here is what currently has my attention:
Short interest: 389,889 shares
Short interest as % of float: 28.35%
Days to cover: 4.58
Off-exchange short volume ratio: 46.23%
Fintel Short Squeeze Score: 97.76
Current Fintel ranking: #2 out of 4,135 stocks
Borrow fee: roughly 30%
Shares available at the tracked prime broker: only 25,000
That is already a serious combination.
A 28.35% short float is substantial on its own. Add 4.58 days to cover and you have a situation where shorts cannot necessarily all exit cleanly if volume suddenly comes pouring into the stock.
That days-to-cover number might actually be one of the more important pieces of this setup. If NEGG catches momentum and shorts decide they want out at the same time, almost five days of normal trading volume would theoretically be required to cover the reported short position.
Obviously volume can explode during a squeeze, but that is exactly the point. Shorts need liquidity to exit. When everybody wants the same exit at once, price can become the mechanism that finds that liquidity.
Now look at borrow availability. Only around 25,000 shares are currently showing available at the prime broker Fintel tracks. A few days ago that number dropped as low as roughly 7,000 to 10,000 shares. It has bounced around, but supply remains limited.
At the same time, shorts are paying roughly a 30% annualized borrow fee. That is nowhere near the four-digit insanity you sometimes see at the absolute peak of a squeeze setup, but 30% is still expensive money. More importantly, it has remained elevated rather than immediately collapsing.
Then there is the Fintel squeeze model.
97.76 out of 100.
Ranked #2 out of 4,135 stocks.
That gets my attention.
Fintel's model incorporates multiple factors including short interest, float, borrow rates and other squeeze-related metrics. A score that high does not guarantee anything, but being ranked second out of more than four thousand names tells you NEGG is objectively sitting near the extreme end of the market based on those variables.
There is another piece developing too: institutional buyers have been appearing.
Recent filings show positions from firms including Jane Street, Barclays, Royal Bank of Canada, HRT Financial, Aquatic Capital, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Geode Capital.
Some of the reported positions are meaningful:
Jane Street: roughly 16,838 shares
HRT Financial: roughly 17,353
Penserra Capital: roughly 23,690
UBS: roughly 16,279
Geode: roughly 18,175
Institutional ownership alone does not cause a squeeze, and 13F filings are backward-looking. But it is interesting seeing professional money accumulating or establishing positions while nearly 30% of the float is reported short.
Now look at the chart.
Anyone who has traded NEGG for a while knows exactly what this ticker is capable of. This stock does not always move normally. It can spend months looking completely dead and then suddenly reprice violently when volume arrives.
We saw it during the famous 2021 run. We saw another explosive move last year. And now NEGG is sitting around $19 after cooling off substantially from its previous run while the squeeze metrics are rebuilding underneath it.
That is exactly the stage that interests me.
I am much more interested in a squeeze candidate before everybody is talking about it than after the stock has already gone vertical.
The ingredients are starting to appear again:
28.35% short float
389,889 shares short
4.58 days to cover
46.23% off-exchange short-volume ratio
Approximately 30% borrow fee
Only 25,000 shares showing available
Fintel squeeze score of 97.76
#2 squeeze ranking out of 4,135 stocks
Institutional buyers appearing in recent filings
And a ticker with a documented history of going completely irrational once momentum hits
The mechanism here is pretty straightforward.
Volume starts increasing. NEGG begins breaking resistance. Momentum traders notice. Call volume starts increasing. Market makers potentially have to hedge additional exposure. Shorts sitting on a stock with nearly 30% short float begin watching losses grow. Some start covering. Covering creates additional buying. Price moves higher. More momentum traders enter. More shorts decide they do not want to be the last ones out.
That feedback loop is what I am looking for.
The 4.58 days-to-cover figure is what makes that scenario particularly interesting to me. Shorts have built a position that is large relative to normal trading liquidity. If normal liquidity suddenly becomes abnormal liquidity because NEGG starts running, the entire equation changes very quickly.
And NEGG has already shown us what happens when that equation changes.
I am not saying the squeeze starts tomorrow. I am not saying $19 automatically becomes $50, $100 or some ridiculous price target. (BUTTTTT it could)
What I am saying is that we have seen this movie before.
Last time I was watching NEGG, the numbers started tightening before the crowd really showed up. Then volume arrived. Then the stock went nuts.
Right now the scoreboard is starting to light up again.
97.76 squeeze score. Number two in the entire Fintel ranking. Almost 30% of the float short. Nearly five days to cover. Borrow still expensive. Available shares still limited. Institutional buyers appearing. And NEGG sitting relatively quiet around $19.
That is exactly when I want to be watching it.
Because once NEGG actually starts squeezing, history says this ticker does not give people much time to think about it.
I think NEGG is winding the spring again.
u/lupina101 — 3 days ago
PCLA shorts are burning alive
PCLA Is Setting Up Like a Loaded Spring
I have been digging deeper into $PCLA, and the more data I pull together, the more interesting this setup gets.
PCLA is currently around $7.16, but price alone is not what has my attention. The borrow situation is getting extreme. The latest data I have shows zero shares available to short at the broker being tracked, while the borrow fee is sitting around 1,073% annualized.
You almost never see borrow conditions get that expensive unless there is serious demand for shares that simply are not readily available.
Now add the official short interest. The July 31 settlement showed approximately 429,834 shares short, representing roughly 58.6% of the reported float. The previous report was only around 201,780 shares short.
That means reported short interest more than doubled between reporting periods.
The pressure also does not appear to have disappeared. Recent FINRA short-volume data showed more than 60% of reported off-exchange volume marked short on August 14. Short volume is not the same thing as short interest, but when you combine that activity with 58%+ reported short float, zero borrow availability and a four-digit borrow rate, it becomes difficult to ignore.
Then there are the failures to deliver. Recent settlement data has shown FTD balances reaching roughly 170,000 to 195,000 shares on multiple dates. Those numbers are aggregate balances for each settlement date and should not be added together, but relative to the reported float, they are notable.
Now look at the chart.
PCLA has already demonstrated what can happen when liquidity dries up. Earlier this year the stock went almost vertical, exploding from the low single digits into double digits in an extremely short period of time.
That move matters because it proves this ticker does not require billions of dollars of capital to move. When enough buyers hit a stock with this type of float, price can reprice violently because there simply are not that many shares available.
Since that spike, PCLA has consolidated back into the $5-$8 area and recently started waking up again.
That is where things get interesting.
58.6% of the reported float short. Approximately 430,000 shares short. Reported short interest more than doubling from the previous period. Zero shares showing available to borrow. Roughly 1,073% annualized borrow cost. Heavy recent short-sale volume. Large recent FTD balances. And a chart that has already shown the stock can move vertically when demand overwhelms liquidity.
That is an ugly combination if you are short.
The borrow rate matters because maintaining the position becomes extraordinarily expensive. The lack of available shares matters because replacing borrowed shares or establishing additional short exposure becomes increasingly difficult. The small float matters because relatively modest buying pressure can have an outsized effect on price.
And every short position eventually represents potential future buying if that position gets closed.
Now imagine momentum traders start buying a breakout.
Price moves higher. Shorts begin taking losses. Some start covering. Their covering becomes additional buying pressure. That pushes price higher. More shorts reconsider the trade while new shorts trying to fight the move are dealing with extremely limited borrow and absurd carrying costs.
That is how a normal breakout can turn into something much more violent.
The next official short-interest report will give us a better picture of whether shorts reduced their exposure after the last move or continued pressing the position. If short interest stayed elevated or increased while borrow remained this tight, the setup gets even more interesting.
I am not claiming a squeeze is guaranteed. Zero shares available at one broker does not mean zero shares exist everywhere. Short-volume percentage does not equal short interest. FTDs do not automatically mean naked shorting.
But you also cannot ignore what the numbers collectively show.
PCLA currently has an unusually large reported short position relative to its float, extraordinarily expensive borrow, virtually nonexistent displayed borrow availability and a documented history of violent price expansion when liquidity tightens.
That is exactly the type of structural setup where volume can become the match.
If PCLA starts clearing the recent highs with real volume while these borrow conditions remain intact, shorts could find themselves fighting over a very small number of shares very quickly.
And with this float, once that door gets crowded, I do not think the move will be slow.
u/lupina101 — 3 days ago
The tidal wave is coming.
$OPEN Bulls
We have followed this name long enough to know when the story is getting ahead of the numbers. Right now, the numbers are starting to catch up to the story.
The bull thesis on Opendoor has only gotten stronger.
The market spent years viewing this company through the lens of a failed housing cycle, heavy capital requirements and an iBuying model that nearly broke under its own weight. That history deserves to be remembered. It also creates the opportunity when a management team starts fixing the exact problems that caused the collapse.
Kaz Nejatian came over from Shopify and immediately started rebuilding the company around speed, accountability, operating leverage and AI. Lucas Matheson brought additional Shopify DNA along with his experience running Coinbase Canada. Keith Rabois and Eric Wu returned. Vu Tran was brought in as Chief AI Officer to push frontier AI through the product, operations and customer experience.
This is a serious concentration of talent around a company sitting on one of the most valuable residential real estate datasets in America.
Now execution is beginning to show up in the numbers.
Q2 revenue increased 23% sequentially to $883 million. Contribution profit increased 59%. Contribution margin reached 5.8%, up 140 basis points sequentially and year over year. Homes purchased increased 77% from Q1 and 149% year over year.
They generated 6,908 acquisition contracts while spending only $5 million on marketing. The last time Opendoor generated more than 6,000 contracts, back in Q2 2022, it spent $81 million.
Read that again. (or 3 times over for the big dumb bears)
That is operating leverage.
Management now believes the current acquisition volumes, unit economics and cost structure put the business on a path to positive Adjusted Net Income on a twelve-month go-forward basis by the end of 2026 without needing a housing recovery to bail them out.
The mortgage opportunity is also starting to matter. More than half of scheduled Opendoor resale closings in Colorado were expected to use Opendoor Home Loans. Texas was already approaching one in five only weeks after launch.
That is where our long-term thesis gets interesting.
If Opendoor can control more of the transaction through AI-driven valuation, acquisition, resale, financing and eventually additional services, the economics of every customer relationship become more valuable.
Residential real estate remains one of the largest, most fragmented and inefficient markets in America. Opendoor has spent more than a decade collecting the data. Now they are assembling the people and technology to actually exploit it.
Then management made one of the strongest capital-allocation statements I have seen from this company.
For the first time in Opendoor's history as a public company, they bought back stock.
Approximately 45.3 million shares. $158 million. Roughly 5% of shares outstanding. Repurchased around $3.49 per share.
At the same time, Opendoor raised $650 million through convertible notes carrying a 0% coupon through 2030. After the repurchase and capped-call transactions, roughly $440 million of additional growth capital is expected to land on the balance sheet.
The transaction was also structured so the company expects no net increase in share count below approximately $10.38 per share under its stated assumptions.
They reduced the share count today, raised hundreds of millions to accelerate growth, pay no regular interest on that capital, and pushed the expected dilution threshold substantially above the current stock price.
That is aggressive capital allocation. I like aggressive when the underlying operating metrics are improving.
Kaz went further and publicly stated that once legally permitted, he intends to personally purchase another $100,000 of OPEN shares.
Management is putting capital behind the thesis.
Institutions appear to be paying attention as well. The latest filings snapshot shows more than 500 institutional owners, while reported institutional long holdings have increased by roughly 223 million shares quarter over quarter.
At the same time, there is still a substantial short position sitting across the table.
The latest end-July data shows approximately 164.6 million shares sold short, representing roughly 17% of the float.
That is plenty of fuel if the fundamental story continues improving and price starts forcing people to reconsider the trade.
Now look at today's chart.
OPEN traded down to roughly $3.18, reversed violently, traded as high as roughly $3.96 and finished around $3.66, up about 4.6%.
Nearly 168 million shares traded. More than three times recent average volume.
More importantly, the 15-minute structure changed.
Price reclaimed the 9, 21, 50 and 200 EMAs. The 50 EMA pushed above the 200 EMA. The shorter averages stacked above the longer averages, with the 9 above the 21, the 21 above the 50 and the 50 marginally above the 200.
That is the first technical development in a while that has made me sit up and pay attention.
I am not declaring the weekly chart repaired. A seasoned trader should know better than to call a long-term reversal off one strong session. There is still real overhead resistance in the low-to-mid $4 range on the higher timeframe.
But now we have something we did not have before.
Volume, a bullish intraday moving-average cross, a violent rejection of the lows, improving operating metrics, rapid acquisition growth, expanding contribution profit, a credible path toward Adjusted Net Income profitability, an AI-focused management team recruited from Shopify, Coinbase and Meta, founders back in the building, institutional accumulation, more than 160 million shares still sold short, a CEO buying stock personally, a company buying back 5% of itself, and $440 million of additional growth capital raised at a 0% coupon.
That is a lot of tinder sitting around the same chart.
The thesis remains simple.
If Kaz and this team execute, Opendoor has an opportunity to become one of the most important technology platforms in American residential real estate.
AI can attack pricing, underwriting, transaction speed, operating costs and customer acquisition simultaneously. Mortgage creates another layer of economics. Opendoor's proprietary transaction history gives those systems data that a startup cannot manufacture overnight.
If they eventually make buying and selling a home dramatically faster, cheaper and more predictable, they have the opportunity to expand access to homeownership while taking friction out of one of the largest markets in the country.
There is still plenty to prove. That is precisely why the opportunity exists at these prices.
I have seen enough speculative runs in my career to know the difference between price moving first and a business beginning to earn the move.
Opendoor is finally giving the bulls operating evidence to work with.
Now I want to see price confirm it.
Get through the low $4s, start reclaiming the major weekly averages, and force 160+ million short shares to reevaluate the other side of the trade.
That is when this gets very spicy.
RIP big gay bears.
u/lupina101 — 6 days ago