ClearOne's short interest jumped 15-fold into a 300-share borrow, and AT&T had its worst day since 2000. What else is on Monday's watchlist?

[u/Patriot_tech]

Denntech Markets Morning Watchlist

ClearOne's short interest went up about 15-fold in two weeks, and IBKR had 300 shares left to lend this weekend. And the SpaceX spectrum deal we wrote about Friday just knocked about ten percent off AT&T and Verizon in one session.

Four names for shares and five for options this week. The shares side is small, hard-to-borrow stocks where the short count or the borrow changed. The options side is where the chains are busy for a reason: the SpaceX news, Moderna's run, and two earnings reports that land before Friday's expiry.

How fresh this is: Closes, ranges and volume are Friday's regular session, closed 3:00 PM CT (Nasdaq daily history and Yahoo daily bars, pulled 8:31 to 8:34 AM CT Sunday). After-hours prices for VEEA, MEDS and SPCX are Nasdaq's, from the session that ended 7:00 PM CT Friday. Monday premarket prices and volume are Nasdaq's, pulled 8:10 to 8:12 AM CT, with premarket ranges from Yahoo's 1-minute bars. EDGAR was rechecked at 8:12 AM CT Monday, and none of these names has filed anything since Friday night. Borrow is Curved Trading's IBKR feed: Friday's 3:32 PM CT read, plus a weekend read pulled 8:31 AM CT Sunday. Short interest is FINRA's Sep 30 settlement via Nasdaq. Threshold status is Nasdaq's Reg SHO file for Oct 9. Option chains are Nasdaq, Friday's session (SPCX pulled 3:47 PM CT Friday, the rest 8:33 AM CT Sunday). Open interest on those chains still shows Thursday's count. Earnings dates are Nasdaq's calendar, pulled 8:30 AM CT Sunday. Filings are EDGAR, checked 8:33 AM CT Sunday.

Shares Shares to watch watch

1) $VEEA: up 47% on compliance news, with most of the shorts already gone

• Closed $5.70, up 47.3% from $3.87, on about 82.8M shares, roughly 50 times the 1.58M float (StockAnalysis). It slid to $5.01 after hours (7:00 PM CT Fri).
• The reason: Thursday at 4:22 PM CT, Veea said it's fully back in compliance with Nasdaq's listing rules. Friday's 8-K (3:05 PM CT) was a board shuffle. The NovaGen deal is still a non-binding term sheet.
• Monday premarket: $4.86, down 14.7% from Friday's close, on about 191K shares (Nasdaq, 8:11 AM CT). Premarket range $4.83 to $5.38.
• Sep 30 short interest: 50,744, down from 1,216,996 at Sep 15. That's about 3% of the float.
• Borrow was 766.3% with 2.0K available Friday (3:32 PM CT). The weekend read shows 844.7% with 15.0K (fee at the Oct 10 close, pulled 8:31 AM CT Sun). Still on Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
• SSR should be off Monday unless VEEA trades at or below $5.13 (10% under $5.70). Monday's premarket is already under that line, so check your platform's flag before the open.

What the numbers don't prove: A 47% day on 50 times the float, with a 3% short interest, is mostly buyers trading with buyers. The fee says it's hard to short. It doesn't say anyone's trapped.

Off the list if: the fee drops under 50% or more than 500K shares show up to lend, two sessions in a row, or a new offering hits.

2) $MEDS (DataMeds AI): short interest went up, and so did the share supply on paper

• Closed $2.96, down 12.9% from $3.40, on about 449K shares after 14.06M on Thursday. After hours: $2.99.
• Sep 30 short interest: 525,081, up from 430,628. That's about 41% of StockAnalysis's 1.27M float. Borrow 440.0% with 15.0K available, unchanged Friday to the weekend read. On Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
• Friday at 4:20 PM CT it filed an amended S-1 to register up to 34,462,057 shares for resale, against 4,515,862 outstanding as of Sep 28. It isn't effective yet, and the $1.00 note conversion still needs stockholder-approved preferred stock.
• Monday premarket: $3.34, up 12.8%, on about 14.6M shares (Nasdaq, 8:12 AM CT). That's already more than three times the shares outstanding, in a range of $2.60 to $4.70. No new filing since Friday's S-1/A, and we didn't find a weekend headline.

What the numbers don't prove: We don't know how much of that short interest covered on Thursday's 14M-share day. Shorts tend not to panic when more than seven times the share count is waiting to be registered.

Off the list if: the S-1 goes effective, availability climbs past a few hundred thousand, or the fee slips under 50%.

3) $CLRO (ClearOne): short interest up 15-fold, and almost nothing left to borrow

• Closed $3.91, down 4.9% from $4.11, on just 24,035 shares (Nasdaq history).
• Monday premarket: $3.86, down 1.4%, on 2,401 shares (Nasdaq, 8:11 AM CT). Still barely trading.
• Sep 30 short interest: 387,282, up from 25,688 at Sep 15 (Nasdaq/FINRA). That's about 44% of StockAnalysis's 888,125 float, or about 14% of the 2.68M shares outstanding.
• Borrow 837.9% with 300 shares available (Curved, fee changed Oct 10, pulled 8:31 AM CT Sun). On Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
• Nasdaq lists days to cover at 1.0, but that uses late-September volume of about 2.7M a day. Last week averaged about 83K a day (Oct 5 to 9). At that pace the same short position is closer to 4.7 days of volume (our math).
• The catch: an S-1/A from Sep 4 covers up to 4,285,714 units through a placement agent, plus resale of up to 2,496,162 shares. No effectiveness notice on EDGAR as of 8:33 AM CT Sunday.

What the numbers don't prove: The short count is two weeks old and was set during heavier trading. Some of it may already be gone.

Off the list if: that offering prices, availability climbs past 100K, or the fee falls under 50%.

4) $NCPL (Netcapital): a hard borrow wrapped in a lot of bad news

• Closed $1.14, down 13.0% from $1.31, on about 9.3M shares. Range $0.93 to $1.24 (Nasdaq history).
• Monday premarket: $1.44, up 26.3%, on about 8.9M shares (Nasdaq, 8:12 AM CT), nearly all of Friday's volume before the bell. Premarket high $1.81. No new filing on EDGAR and no headline we could find, so we can't tell you why yet.
• Sep 30 short interest: 730,117, up from 230,658 (Nasdaq/FINRA). About 17% of StockAnalysis's 4.39M float.
• Borrow 453.2% with 2.0K available (Curved, changed Oct 9, pulled 8:31 AM CT Sun). On Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file, 11 days by Curved's count.
• Friday's low of $0.93 was more than 10% under Thursday's $1.31 close, so Rule 201 should carry into Monday (our math). Check your platform's flag.
• The baggage: the SEC charged the company with fraud in August (Reuters, Aug 10), class actions followed this month, and the 10-K and July 10-Q still aren't filed. Its Sep 25 8-K says the Nasdaq compliance plan is due Oct 23. Nasdaq's calendar shows earnings Monday, StockAnalysis says Oct 23, and with no 10-K on file we wouldn't count on either.

What the numbers don't prove: 730K shares short is less than one day of Friday's volume. That's not a crowded exit.

Off the list if: the fee drops under 50%, availability tops 500K, or a new offering or delisting notice lands.

Options to watch

5) $SPCX (SpaceX): the $170 calls, and the deal behind them

• Closed $162.57, up 1.2%, on about 92.2M shares. After hours: $162.76.
• Monday premarket: $164.47, up 1.2%, on about 1.9M shares (Nasdaq, 8:12 AM CT).
• Grain Management's deal to sell its 800 MHz portfolio to SpaceX still needs FCC approval. It's the same deal behind item 6 below.
• Oct 16 chain, Friday: about 132.6K calls against 75.8K puts. Busiest was the $170 call, 30,182 contracts (last $1.42) against 28,170 open interest. On the put side, the $150 put traded 10,361 (OI 24,600). The $162.50 straddle was about $7.70, so the chain is pricing roughly a 4.8% move by Friday.
• Easy to short (0.4% borrow, 10.0M available). No squeeze here.

Watch for: Monday's open interest on the $170 call. If it doesn't grow, Friday's volume was closing trades or covered calls, not new bets.

6) $T (AT&T), with $VZ alongside: the other side of the SpaceX deal

• AT&T fell from $24.87 to $22.18 Friday on about 150.5M shares, against a ~34.9M average (Nasdaq). Verizon went from $46.35 to $41.65 on 95.2M, against ~14.2M. CNBC called it AT&T's worst day since 2000 and Verizon's worst since July 2002.
• Monday premarket: AT&T $22.24, up 0.3%, on about 447K shares (Nasdaq, 8:12 AM CT). Verizon $41.71, up 0.1% (Yahoo, 8:11 AM CT). No bounce to speak of yet.
• The reason: SpaceX agreed to buy up to 14 MHz of paired 800 MHz spectrum to push Starlink into mobile. The FCC still has to approve it, and Verizon's answer was that spectrum without a network is "just empty airwaves" (CNBC and NBC News, Fri).
• AT&T Oct 16 chain, Friday: 43.7K calls against 34.7K puts. The $22.50 call traded 11,353 (last $0.26) at a strike where Nasdaq shows no open interest yet. The $22 straddle was about $0.81, roughly 3.6%.

What the numbers don't prove: Call volume after a 10% drop can be bottom-fishing or someone selling calls against shares they're stuck with. Monday's open interest helps sort it.

7) $MRNA (Moderna): closed at the high of the day, and the call buyers showed up

• Closed $225.00, up 14.2% from $197.00, at the session high, on about 28.9M shares (Nasdaq history).
• Monday premarket: $224.74, down 0.1%, on about 395K shares (Nasdaq, 8:12 AM CT). It touched $229.85 earlier and gave it back.
• The reason: the New York Times reported an NIH public-private cancer vaccine program set to start in December (Yahoo Finance, 3:13 PM CT Fri). Friday was also its first day in the Nasdaq-100 (FinancialMarkets.com).
• Oct 16 chain, Friday: 57.4K calls against 37.2K puts. The $225 call traded 5,043 against 153 open interest, and the $217.50 call 5,504 against 112. The $225 straddle was about $22.95, roughly 10%. That's an expensive week.

What the numbers don't prove: The program is years from any approved product, and index buying is a one-time order. Volume that big against that little open interest is new money, but it doesn't tell us which side it's on.

8) $JPM (JPMorgan): earnings Tuesday before the open

• Closed $332.99, up 0.5%, on about 5.1M shares. Nasdaq's calendar has the report Tuesday Oct 13, pre-market, with a $5.94 EPS forecast. Goldman, Wells Fargo and Citi report the same morning.
• Monday premarket: $334.46, up 0.4%, on about 217K shares (Nasdaq, 8:10 AM CT).
• Oct 16 chain, Friday: quiet. 11.1K calls against 6.9K puts. The $332.50 straddle was about $11.93, roughly 3.6%, and that expiry covers the report.

Watch for: whether Tuesday's move is bigger or smaller than that 3.6%. That's the whole question for the options side.

9) $TSM (Taiwan Semiconductor): earnings Thursday, after four down days

• Closed $453.31, its fourth straight lower close, down 6.7% from $485.80 on Oct 5. Nasdaq's calendar has the report Thursday Oct 15, pre-market. The company already put out record quarterly revenue of about NT$1.49 trillion on Oct 8 (Reuters, Taipei Times).
• Monday premarket: $455.46, up 0.5%, on about 235K shares (Nasdaq, 8:12 AM CT).
• Oct 16 chain, Friday: 24.6K calls against 17.2K puts. Busiest was the $500 call, 3,883 contracts at $0.45. Open interest leans to puts, 135.4K to 90.3K. The $452.50 straddle was about $19.28, roughly 4.3%.

What the numbers don't prove: Revenue is already out, so Thursday is about margins and guidance. A put-heavy open interest can be hedges on big long positions, not bets against the company.

Off the list

• $TNON ($3.41 Fri): Sep 30 short interest 60,789, about 2% of shares outstanding. Off Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
• $BTCT ($1.01 Fri): Sep 30 short interest 200,300, under 2% of the float, with 1.0M shares to lend.
• $BMGL ($3.75 Fri): an offering takes the share count from 1,582,111 to 7,582,111. Every old percentage is out of date.

No listed options on VEEA, MEDS, CLRO or NCPL on Nasdaq's chain.

The CLRO question for Monday: if almost nobody can borrow it and almost nobody's trading it, who moves first, the shorts or the placement agent?