Short sellers loaded up 185 million shares against SpaceX. The stock dropped below its IPO price. Now 29% of the float is betting the company fails.
This is the same company that lands rockets on barges in the ocean. They catch boosters with giant metal chopsticks. They launch satellites faster than you can refresh your brokerage app. But sure, short it.
The technical setup screams brilliance. Borrow shares at elevated prices. Pay interest daily. Hope the company that dominates commercial spaceflight somehow implodes before your margin call arrives. It's like shorting the Wright Brothers in 1904 because their plane only flew 852 feet.
Retail traders saw the dip and bought it. They always do. Price drops below IPO and they interpret it as a sale. Like finding expired milk marked down 40%. What a bargain.
The shorts have conviction. You have to admire that. They looked at a company with government contracts, a Mars colonization plan, and a CEO who treats SEC regulations like bathroom graffiti, and thought: this is my moment. This is where I make my stand.
S3 tracked the data. 185 million shares. That's not a hedge. That's not a pairs trade. That's someone's entire thesis. Someone wakes up every morning, checks SpaceX's stock price, and either celebrates or contemplates career changes. Probably the latter lately, but hope springs eternal.
The float is 29% short. The borrow cost keeps climbing. The company keeps launching payloads. Math will resolve this eventually. It always does.
Short sellers betting against rocket science while the rockets keep launching is the kind of irony that would be poetic if it wasn't so f*cking expensive.
Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash
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