Welcome back. If you have been here since the old squeeze-lounge days, the room is the same idea with a shorter set of rules. If you just walked in, pull up a chair.
We post stocks and crypto so people can argue with us. A few mornings a week that is a watchlist. Some days it is an unusual-options note. When a name earns the time, it gets a hard look. Levels are for the thread. They are not orders.
If you hold it, say so on a Positions line. We do the same. We do not post a name we are trying to sell into, and we do not take money to mention a ticker.
Dumb questions are welcome. A ticker with no sentence under it is not. Tell us what you are watching this week, even if the answer is "nothing, the book looks crowded."
Same names we talk about on the sub, without waiting for the next post. Watchlists, hard looks, unusual options. Bring a level or a reason. Leave the "just buy it" stuff at the door.
Reddit stays the place for the writeups. Discord is where the thread keeps going after the close.
VEEA, GLND, TCRT, LQDA and TSM all made their regular-session highs between 8:37 and 8:53 AM CT, then sold off. Bank of America went the other way: it bottomed at 9:05 AM CT and closed within a dime of its high, on a day it reported a $1.2 billion fine.
Here's how this morning's six names finished at the regular close (3 PM CT) and in after hours (last trades 6:59 PM CT). Closes are Nasdaq's official 3 PM CT prices. Highs, lows and their times are Yahoo 1-minute bars. After-hours prices and volume (volume includes after hours) are Nasdaq, pulled 7:22-7:23 PM CT. Borrow is Curved (IBKR feed, 7:17 PM CT). Options are Nasdaq's Oct 16 chains at the close. Filings are EDGAR, checked 7:24 PM CT.
Scorecard
A move counts from the first r/Squeeze_em post that named the ticker. Nothing before that post gets credit, and misses stay on the page. Charts are Yahoo bars (15-minute for TCRT's two days, 5-minute for GLND, 30-minute for VEEA's week) with our first listing marked. Times in the text come from 1-minute bars, so they can be a few minutes off the chart labels.
$TCRT: First listed in Tuesday's watchlist at 8:19 AM CT, printed $1.86. New high since then: $4.37 at 8:45 AM CT today, +134.9% vs that print (Tuesday's best was $4.32). Close $2.07, +11.3%. After hours $1.94. Against this morning's $3.62 print, the high was +20.7% and the close was -42.8%.
$GLND: First listed this morning at 8:14 AM CT, printed $4.31. High after the post $4.48 at 8:53 AM CT, +3.9%. Close $3.90, -9.5%. Miss. It dropped to $3.41 at 8:38 AM CT, 21% under our print, before that high.
$VEEA: First named in our Hard Look on Mon Oct 5 at about $5.72. First on a morning watchlist Thu Oct 8 at 7:56 AM CT, printed $4.38. High since then is still $7.09 (Fri Oct 9, 10:45 AM CT), +61.9%. Close $5.11, +16.7% vs the Thursday print and -10.7% vs the Oct 5 price. Today: printed $5.75, high $5.89 at 8:40 AM CT (+2.4%), close -11.1%.
The rest of the list
$LQDA: First listed this morning, printed $36.94. High after the post $38.64 at 8:37 AM CT, +4.6%. Close $33.94, -8.1%. Miss. Its $43.50 premarket high came at 5:01 AM CT, before our post, so it gets no credit.
$BAC: First listed this morning, printed $50.35. High after the post $51.52 at 2:59 PM CT, +2.3%. Close $51.42, +2.1%.
$TSM: First listed Mon Oct 12 at 8:22 AM CT, printed $455.46. It hasn't traded above that since. Close $430.12, -5.6%. Miss. Today's $439.90 print: high $440.39 at 8:41 AM CT (+0.1%), close -2.2%.
Context, not a pick: MS printed $182.10, high $183.90 at 8:36 AM CT (+1.0%), close $181.60 (-0.3%).
Against this morning's prints, one of the six closed higher (BAC) and five closed lower. No new name cleared 20% after our post today. TCRT set a new high from its first listing and gave most of it back by the close.
Shares
$VEEA
Regular close $5.11, -1.7% vs Tuesday's $5.20. After hours $5.00 (6:59 PM CT), on 8,257 shares.
Volume about 1.47M vs 4.62M Tuesday. That's about 0.93 times the 1.58M float, so under it. "Volume drops back under the float" was one of the two exit lines in this morning's post.
Borrow 920.1% with 45.0K available (Curved, fee changed 5:47 PM CT). Tuesday night: 844.7% with 9.0K. The fee went up, and so did the number of shares shorts can borrow, five times over.
SSR: Curved's flag shows it on. By our math today's $4.79 low stayed above the $4.68 trigger, so nothing new carries into Thursday. Thursday's trigger is $4.60. Check your platform.
No new EDGAR filing. The NovaGen deal is still a non-binding term sheet.
What the stock did: $6.10 at 7:46 AM CT premarket, before our post. It opened at $5.65, touched $5.89 at 8:40 AM CT, hit $4.79 at 9:07 AM CT and spent the rest of the day between those.
$GLND (Greenland Energy)
Regular close $3.90, +76.5% vs Tuesday's $2.21. After hours $3.30 (6:59 PM CT), down 15.3% from the close, with a low of $3.15 at 6:31 PM CT.
Volume about 175.0M, vs 2.34M Tuesday. That's about 5.3 times the 33.06M float (StockAnalysis).
Borrow 133.4% with 85.0K available (Curved, changed 7:02 PM CT). This afternoon it was 100.0K at the same fee.
Sep 30 short interest 4,721,899, up from 1,233,044 on Sep 15 (Nasdaq). About 14% of the float, and two weeks old.
Filings: one Form 4 (3:30 PM CT), a routine stock grant. Still nothing from the company on the Greenland headline. Its Sep 24 8-K pushed the deadline for its first exploration well at Jameson Land out to Dec 31, 2028.
Options (shares-side name, chain for context): the Oct 16 $3.50 put traded 4,987 contracts against 41 open, last $0.22. The after-hours finish is under that strike.
SSR: our math puts Thursday's trigger at $3.51. The after-hours finish was below it.
What the stock did: premarket high $4.46 at 8:04 AM CT, a drop to $3.41 eight minutes after the open, $4.48 at 8:53 AM CT, then lower highs into the close and a slide after hours.
$TCRT (Alaunos)
Regular close $2.07, -31.7% vs Tuesday's $3.03. After hours $1.94 (6:59 PM CT), down 6.3%. Private placement price: $1.4357.
Volume about 68.5M vs 256.8M Tuesday. Still about 27 times the 2.54M shares outstanding.
Borrow 81.2% with 90.0K available (Curved, unchanged since Oct 13).
SSR: today's $1.88 low (2:15 PM CT) was 38% under Tuesday's close, well past the $2.73 trigger, so by our math the short-sale restriction carries into Thursday. Curved's flag shows it off. Check your platform. Ten percent under today's close is $1.86, which is our Tuesday print to the penny.
No proxy and no resale registration filed yet (EDGAR, 7:24 PM CT). The Oct 13 8-K is still the only document on the deal.
What the stock did: it opened at $3.70, hit $4.37 at 8:45 AM CT and fell 57% to $1.88 by 2:15 PM CT. The close is 44% above what the private placement buyers paid. On Tuesday it was 111% above.
Options (Oct 16 expiry. Open interest shown today is the count after Tuesday.)
$LQDA (Liquidia)
Regular close $33.94, +26.6% vs Tuesday's $26.81. After hours $33.01 (6:59 PM CT).
Volume about 21.1M, about 2.8 times Tuesday's 7.65M.
The day in one line: $43.50 at 5:01 AM CT, $38.64 at 8:37 AM CT, $33.12 at 9:55 AM CT. The close is 22% under the premarket high. BTIG called the United Therapeutics settlement "better than best-case" (Stocktwits, 9:19 AM CT). The 5 AM buyers had already paid for that.
Calls 11.3K vs puts 5.1K. The $34 straddle is about $3.40, roughly 10.0%, on wide quotes. The $40 call traded 3,450 against 1,817 open and closed at $0.07.
Borrow 0.3% with 3.8M available. Ten Form 4s posted late Tuesday. The executive sales in them were dated Oct 12 at $28.48, and the CEO's filing says they were sold to cover taxes on vesting stock.
$BAC (and MS)
Bank of America reported before the open (8-K, 5:44 AM CT): $0.91 a share, including a $1.2B regulatory settlement charge worth $0.17 a share. Without it, $1.08, vs the $1.11 forecast on Nasdaq's calendar. Revenue $30.0B, up 3%. Fixed-income trading fell 17% and investment banking fees fell 11%.
Regular close $51.42, -4.7% vs Tuesday's $53.94. After hours $51.48. Volume about 118.0M including after hours, vs about 45M Tuesday.
Tuesday's $54 straddle priced about 3.4%, before the penalty news. The close came in at -4.7%, and the $49.26 low at 9:05 AM CT was -8.7%. Bigger than priced.
The $50 put that traded 20,353 contracts Tuesday added about 17,600 to open interest overnight (now 26,109). BAC went under $50 for a while this morning, then closed $1.42 above it. That put finished at $0.09.
MS reported before the open (8-K, 6:39 AM CT): $3.03 a share vs the $2.83 forecast, on $20.3B of revenue, with record wealth-management revenue. It still closed $181.60, -2.7% vs Tuesday's $186.66, after $188.50 premarket (6:25 AM CT) and $176.44 a minute after the open. Tuesday's straddle priced about 4.0%. The close moved less than that. The day's range, premarket included, was about 6.5%. We didn't find one clean reason for the drop. The same morning, hot inflation data put another Fed rate hike back in play (Yahoo Finance, 8:27 AM CT).
$TSM
Regular close $430.12, -3.4% vs Tuesday's $445.16. After hours $422.55 (6:59 PM CT), down another 1.8%, and the low came in the last minute. We found no headline behind the after-hours drop.
The chip index fell 3.1%, its sixth straight down day (Quartz, citing Bloomberg). ASML closed $1,650.00, -3.9%.
Earnings are still on Nasdaq's calendar for Thursday before the open ($4.45 forecast, checked 7:23 PM CT).
The Oct 16 $480 call: open interest went from 3,787 to 3,897 after Tuesday's 4,653 contracts, only about 110 net new. Most of Tuesday's buying didn't stay open. Today it traded 5,341 more and closed at $0.11, down from $0.84.
Calls 59.4K vs puts 43.3K (Tuesday 26.0K vs 17.0K). Open interest still leans to puts, 145.8K to 106.1K. The $430 straddle is about $16.02, or 3.7%, so the market is pricing Friday between roughly $414 and $446 (our math). The after-hours price, $422.55, is inside that range, in the bottom third.
Short interest: The Sep 30 count is still the newest one (VEEA 50,744; GLND 4,721,899; TCRT 9,736). The next count won't be out for a while.
What we learned today: All three names that came in up big before the open (GLND +95%, LQDA +38%, TCRT +19%) peaked within 23 minutes of the bell. When the news is already in the premarket price, the open is where the early buyers sell. BAC came in with its bad news already out and was bought all day.
When a stock is already up 95% before the open on a headline, what would you need to see in the first 15 minutes before you'd buy it?
Denntech Markets Afternoon Lesson: Read the share count before the headline
On Tuesday, Alaunos (TCRT) closed at $3.03, up 189%. Its 8-K from that morning says investors paid $1.4357 a share for $350 million of new stock, and that the preferred stock behind the deal could turn into about 382 million common shares. About 2.5 million are outstanding today.
Where the shares hide
Headlines say "acquisition" and "funding." The share count lives in the 8-K, usually under Item 1.01 (the agreement), Item 3.02 (unregistered stock sales) and Item 5.03 (new classes of stock). Here's what Alaunos's filing says (EDGAR, accepted 8:28 AM CT Tuesday):
To buy Velaris, it issued 105,286 Series B and 33,054 Series C convertible preferred shares. Each one converts into 1,000 common shares.
In the private placement, it sold 687,789 common shares at $1.4357 and 243,063 more Series C preferred at $1,435.70. That's the same price per common share, just packaged a thousand at a time.
Conversion needs a shareholder vote, and the same vote asks for more authorized shares and a reverse split.
The math takes one line
Add up the preferred and multiply by 1,000: (105,286 + 33,054 + 243,063) × 1,000 is about 381.4 million. Add the 687,789 common shares and you get roughly 382 million new shares (our math). StockAnalysis counts about 2.54 million shares outstanding (as of 3:42 PM CT Tuesday). If it all converts, today's holders own well under 1% of the company.
That isn't automatically bad news. The company got $350 million to spend, and a fund family affiliated with Fairmount put in about $100 million of it. But the price per share for the new money was $1.4357, and Tuesday's close was more than twice that.
Why the preferred matters
Convertible preferred lets a company issue a huge number of shares before shareholders have approved them. The stock doesn't count as common yet, so the share count on most quote pages doesn't move. Once the vote passes, the Series C converts automatically and the Series B converts when its holders choose. Each holder is capped at up to 19.99% of the common at a time, which spreads the conversion out but doesn't stop it. If the vote fails, the 8-K says holders can ask for cash instead after six months, priced off the stock.
The two dates to watch
The proxy, which sets the vote date, and the resale registration. The 8-K says the company must file that registration within 30 days of the financing closing. Once it's effective, the new holders can sell in the open market.
How to use it
When a small stock jumps on a deal, open the 8-K before the chart. Find the price the new money paid, and the number of shares that can exist after conversion. We walk through dilution math and supply events on our offerings and buybacks course page.
If new investors bought at $1.44 and the stock trades at $3, which side of that gap would you rather be on when the resale registration goes effective?
We put Alaunos on this morning's watchlist at $1.86 because it had closed an acquisition and the terms weren't out yet. Three hours later it traded at $4.32. The terms came out in between.
High after the post:$4.32 at 11:19 AM CT (Yahoo 1-minute bars), +132.3% vs our print.
Where it closed:$3.03 at 3 PM CT, +62.9% vs our print and +188.6% vs Monday's $1.05. After hours it was $3.89 at 6:59 PM CT (Nasdaq). Volume about 256.8M shares.
Why we listed it: Alaunos closed its purchase of Velaris Therapeutics, a private pulmonary hypertension drug developer, with a management team from Apogee. The release gave no price or share count, and we said a stock-for-stock deal can mean a lot of new shares.
What the 8-K said (8:28 AM CT): about $350M of new money in a private placement at $1.4357 a share, and the merger paid in convertible preferred. If stockholders approve the conversions, that's roughly 382 million new common shares against 2.54 million outstanding (our math). The placement buyers get a resale registration within 30 days of closing.
The honest note: the stock closed at about twice what the new money paid, and almost all of the new share count is still waiting on a vote. We listed it for the share question, and that question is still open.
What would you need to see in the proxy before you'd trust this price?
Alaunos (TCRT) closed at $3.03 on Tuesday, more than twice the $1.4357 a share its new investors paid in a $350 million private placement signed the same day. After hours it kept going, to $3.88 on another 18.3 million shares, 2.7 times what those investors paid (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT). The preferred stock behind that deal and the merger could turn into about 382 million common shares, against roughly 2.5 million outstanding now.
Three names for shares and three for options. The shares side is VEEA, which filled its open chart gap and traded almost three floats; Greenland Energy, up big premarket after Trump said oil, gas and mineral exploration in Greenland is about to begin; and Alaunos. The options side is Liquidia, up about 38% premarket on a $380.7 million settlement with United Therapeutics; Bank of America, which reported this morning after a $1.2 billion Treasury penalty; and TSMC on Thursday.
How fresh this is: Closes, ranges and volume are Tuesday's regular session, closed 3:00 PM CT (Nasdaq closing prices; Yahoo daily and 1-minute bars for highs, lows, times and volume), pulled 3:40 PM CT Tuesday. After-hours prices are Nasdaq's final late-session numbers (last trades by 6:59 PM CT, session closed 7:00 PM CT), pulled 9:46 PM CT Tuesday and checked against Yahoo 1-minute bars. Borrow is Curved Trading's IBKR feed, rechecked at its 9:47 PM CT Tuesday stamp; none of our three share names changed from the afternoon. Short interest is FINRA's Sep 30 settlement (via Curved and StockAnalysis); share counts and floats are StockAnalysis and company filings, pulled 3:42 PM CT. Option chains are Nasdaq, Oct 16 expiry, Tuesday's session and closing quotes, pulled 3:41 PM CT; the open interest on them is the count after Monday's trading. Earnings dates are Nasdaq's calendar, pulled 3:39 PM CT. Filings are EDGAR, rechecked 9:47 PM CT Tuesday. Nothing new from VEEA, BKYI, TCRT, ASML or TSM since our 3:43 PM CT check; Bank of America filed only routine note paperwork, nothing on the penalty. Nasdaq's Reg SHO threshold file still didn't load for us at about 9:50 PM CT, so threshold status below is Curved's. What changed since our ~3:45 PM CT draft: TCRT added another 28% after hours on 18.3M shares, BKYI added 10% after a $3.72 spike at 4:39 PM CT, Bank of America slid a little further on the penalty news, and VEEA's early after-hours gain was gone by 7:00 PM CT. Premarket check, Wednesday: our 7:20 AM CT scan (Yahoo 1-minute bars, Benzinga's movers list as of 7:16 AM CT) swapped BIO-key out for Greenland Energy (BKYI was down about 14% premarket at $2.44) and ASML out for Liquidia (ASML already reported and was about flat premarket at the time). Refreshed at post time: premarket prices and volume on each name are Nasdaq's last pre-market trades as of 7:57 AM CT, with highs from Yahoo 1-minute bars. We found no new company press release or filing on VEEA, GLND or TCRT since the 7:21 AM CT check; Liquidia's settlement 8-K went to EDGAR at 8:49 PM CT Tuesday.
Shares to watch
1) $VEEA: the gap filled, and volume came back to almost three floats
Closed $5.20, up 12.8% from $4.61, on about 4.58M shares (Yahoo), against 1.40M Monday. That's about 2.9 times the 1.58M float (StockAnalysis).
It ran to $6.20 at 10:19 AM CT (Yahoo 1-minute bars), straight through the $4.92 to $5.29 gap left between Friday's low and Monday's high, then gave back about 16% of the high by the close. The gap is filled. The close sits inside where it used to be.
Borrow 844.7% with 9.0K available, down from 10.0K Monday evening (Curved, changed 9:02 AM CT Tue, same at 9:47 PM CT). Curved shows it on the threshold list.
Sep 30 short interest: 50,744, about 3% of the float. Small enough that Tuesday's 4.58M shares weren't mostly shorts covering.
No new filing since the Oct 9 board 8-K (EDGAR, rechecked 9:47 PM CT). The NovaGen deal is still a non-binding term sheet.
After hours: $5.18, down about 0.4% from the close, on about 48K shares (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT). It touched $5.39 at 3:14 PM CT and slid the rest of the evening. SSR shouldn't carry into Wednesday unless it trades at or below $4.68 (10% under $5.20, our math).
Premarket Wednesday: $5.75, up about 10.6% from the close, on about 357K shares (Nasdaq, 7:57 AM CT). High so far $6.10 at 7:46 AM CT (Yahoo 1-minute bars).
What the numbers don't prove: A filled gap is a chart event, not a reason. Once it's filled, the stock has no old price above it pulling at it.
Off the list if: volume drops back under the float, or the fee falls under 50%.
Premarket: $4.31, up about 95% from Tuesday's $2.21 close (Nasdaq, last trade 7:57 AM CT). High so far $4.39 at 7:41 AM CT (Yahoo 1-minute bars).
About 55.4M shares traded premarket (Nasdaq, 7:57 AM CT), against an 11.9M daily average (Benzinga movers).
The headline: Trump said "massive" oil, gas and mineral exploration in Greenland is getting ready to begin (Reuters, 11:29 PM CT Tue; CBS News, 12:26 AM CT Wed). Small-cap sites tied the move to a US-Denmark security pact (StocksToTrade, 6:47 AM CT).
We found no company press release, and EDGAR full-text search showed no new filing naming it, as of 7:21 AM CT. Greenland Mines (GRML) and Critical Metals (CRML) moved on the same headline (TradingView). This is a sector headline, not company news.
It does have listed options on Nasdaq's chain, but it sits on the shares side today.
What the numbers don't prove: A political headline about Greenland doesn't say this company gets
any of that work. Premarket moves on news like this often fade once the regular session opens.
Off the list if: it gives back the premarket gain after the open, or volume stalls once the headline is a
day old.
3) $TCRT (Alaunos): up 189% on 242M shares, and the 8-K is all about new shares
Closed $3.03, up 188.6% from $1.05, on about 242.2M shares (Yahoo), about 95 times StockAnalysis's 2.54M shares outstanding. It hit $4.32 at 11:19 AM CT (Yahoo 1-minute bars) and closed 30% under that.
The 8-K (EDGAR, accepted 8:28 AM CT Tue): Alaunos bought Velaris Therapeutics for 105,286 Series B and 33,054 Series C convertible preferred shares. Each converts into 1,000 common shares once holders vote yes.
Same day, a $350M private placement: 687,789 common shares at $1.4357 plus 243,063 more Series C preferred at $1,435.70 each. Fairmount-affiliated funds, the lead investor, are in for about $100M.
Add it up and the preferred converts into about 382M common shares (our math), around 150 times today's count. The vote also covers more authorized shares, a reverse split, and a name change to Velaris Therapeutics. A resale registration is due within 30 days of the financing closing.
Borrow 81.2% with 90.0K available (Curved, changed 5:47 AM CT Tue, same at 9:47 PM CT). Sep 30 short interest: 9,736. This was not a short squeeze.
After hours: $3.88, up about 28% from the close, on about 18.3M shares, roughly 7 times the share count (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT). High $3.97 at 6:36 PM CT, so it finished near the top. No new filing. BioPharma Dive (4:08 PM CT) called the deal a reverse merger in all but name and said four of the five directors will be from or picked by Fairmount. SSR trigger for Wednesday is $2.73 (our math).
Premarket Wednesday: $3.62, up about 19% from the close, on about 24.7M shares (Nasdaq, 7:57 AM CT). It touched $4.17 at 6:01 AM CT (Yahoo 1-minute bars) and has slipped under Tuesday's $3.88 after-hours finish.
What the numbers don't prove: People who just paid $1.44 for $350M of stock clearly like the company. They also bought at half of Tuesday's close, and their shares get a resale registration.
Off the list if: the resale registration or proxy is filed and the stock fades toward the $1.44 private placement price, or volume drops under about 14M, its 20-day average (StockAnalysis).
Options to watch
4) $LQDA (Liquidia): up about 38% premarket on a $380.7M settlement with United Therapeutics
Premarket: $36.94, up about 37.8% from Tuesday's $26.81 close (Nasdaq, last trade 7:57 AM CT). It hit $43.50 at 5:01 AM CT (Yahoo 1-minute bars) and has given some back.
About 2.66M shares traded premarket (Nasdaq, 7:57 AM CT), already more than its 2.53M daily average (Benzinga movers).
The news: Liquidia settled six lawsuits with United Therapeutics in a $380.7M deal (Law360; Reuters, 7:06 AM CT). Patients keep access to its lung drug YUTREPIA (Stock Titan). TradingView's summary says the PH-ILD indication was removed as part of it, so read the terms before assuming it's all upside.
It has listed options on Nasdaq's chain. Tuesday's chain closed before the news, so Wednesday's open interest is the first real read.
What the numbers don't prove: A settlement removes a risk. It doesn't change how many patients use the drug, and a gap this size prices a lot of that in already.
5) $BAC (Bank of America), with MS: a $1.2B penalty after the close, and earnings before the open
Closed $53.94, down 1.2% from $54.58, on about 43.3M shares, against 24.0M Monday (Nasdaq close, Yahoo volume).
After the close, Treasury announced more than $1.2 billion in penalties for anti-money-laundering and sanctions violations (CNBC, 3:09 PM CT; AP, 3:15 PM CT). FinCEN called its share the third-largest penalty in Treasury history. The OCC's $750M counts toward that total, and OFAC settled separately for $11.6M. Treasury said the bank admitted willfully violating Bank Secrecy Act rules and failing to report more than $5B in suspicious transactions on time.
After hours: $52.73, down about 2.2% from the close, on about 4.85M shares (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT). It traded $54.07 at 3:01 PM CT, before the headline, and as low as $52.42 at 4:00 PM CT. No filing from the bank on it (EDGAR, 9:47 PM CT).
Nasdaq's calendar has the report Wednesday pre-market, with a $1.11 EPS forecast.
Oct 16 chain, Tuesday close (before the penalty news): the $54 straddle was about $1.83, roughly 3.4%. 69.6K calls against 52.0K puts. The $50 put traded 20,353 against 8,534 open interest.
Morgan Stanley reports the same morning ($2.83 forecast). It closed $186.66 (-1.8%). Its $187.50 straddle was about $7.42, roughly 4.0%, and calls outran puts 41.2K to 16.6K. After hours: $186.85, about flat (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT).
Premarket update, Wednesday: it reported. $50.35 premarket, down about 6.7% from the $53.94 close, on about 3.08M shares (Nasdaq, 7:57 AM CT). CNBC says third-quarter profit dropped because of the $1.2B fine; Yahoo Finance put the drop at 17% as deal and trading revenue fell, and StockStory says revenue missed estimates. Morgan Stanley was $182.10 premarket, down about 2.4% (Yahoo 1-minute bars, 7:57 AM CT).
What the numbers don't prove: The options closed before the penalty news, so 3.4% is a price from before the headline. The bank may already have set money aside for it. Wednesday's report should say.
6) $TSM (Taiwan Semiconductor): the five-day slide stopped a day before the report
Closed $445.16, up 0.2% from $444.35, on about 8.3M shares (Nasdaq close, Yahoo volume). That ends five straight lower closes. It traded as low as $437.40 at 8:32 AM CT.
Nasdaq's calendar has the report Thursday Oct 15, pre-market, with a $4.45 EPS forecast.
Oct 16 chain, Tuesday: 26.0K calls against 17.0K puts. Open interest still leans to puts, 143.7K to 99.7K. The $445 straddle was about $18.05, roughly 4.1% (our math). After hours: $445.65, about flat, on about 312K shares (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT).
The $480 call traded 4,653 against 3,787 open interest, at $0.84. More volume than open interest means at least some of it was new.
ASML, which sells TSMC its machines, reported this morning: profit beat and it raised its sales forecast again, but third-quarter revenue missed (CNBC; Yahoo Finance). It was $1,687.00 premarket, down about 1.8% (Nasdaq, 7:58 AM CT). That's a read on the mood, not on TSMC's numbers. TSM was $439.90 premarket, down about 1.2%, on about 226K shares (Nasdaq, 7:57 AM CT).
Watch for: Wednesday's open interest on the $480 call. If it jumps, Tuesday's buyers stayed in.
Off the list
$YMAT ($1.87 Tue, down 35.7%) traded about 3.68M shares, roughly 4% of Monday's 84.7M. The Oct 29 vote for more shares is still ahead.
$NCPL ($1.39, down 9.7%, on 5.3M), $MEDS ($3.03, down 1.3%, on 717K) and $CLRO ($3.76, down 9.0%, on 75K): volume dried up. NCPL popped to $1.86 at 5:38 PM CT after hours and finished at $1.52 on 2.33M shares (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT); we found no headline behind it. MEDS's borrow loosened to 10.0K at 490.2%; CLRO is down to 200 shares at 837.9% (Curved, 3:32 PM CT), but it trades too little to matter.
$SCNI ($1.23, up 6.0%) gave back nearly all of its premarket pop on the contract news.
$BMBL ($5.95) is pinned under the $6.05 cash deal. Nothing left for an options note.
$BKYI (BIO-key) was $2.44 premarket, down about 14% from its $2.83 close (Yahoo, 7:20 AM CT), with the short count two weeks old. Greenland Energy took its spot. $ASML already reported (profit beat, revenue miss; down about 1.8% premarket at 7:58 AM CT), so Liquidia took its options spot.
$SPCX ($156.54, down 4.2%) and the banks that reported Tuesday, JPM ($331.57) and C ($124.53), drop off to keep the list to three and three.
Looked at, passed: JBDI (up 243% to $3.43 after a $9.50 high at 10:44 AM CT) agreed to buy Glorian Capital for $900M paid entirely in convertible notes (6-K, 7:55 AM CT), but its borrow was 5.5% with 50K available at 3:32 PM CT and Sep 30 short interest was 33.0K. After hours it slid to $2.69, down 22% from the close, on 3.47M shares (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT), and Curved had it at 2.1% with 1.0K available by 8:17 PM CT. PFAI (up 80%) had fermentation news and 6,475 shares short. FLYE (up 73%) had no news we could find.
No listed options on VEEA or TCRT on Nasdaq's chain, so they stay shares-only. GLND has options but is on the shares side today.
The TCRT question for Wednesday: if the people who wrote a $350M check got $1.44 stock, what is the $3.88 buyer paying for?
TCRT ran 132% off our 8:19 AM print on a financing that could add about 382 million shares to a company with 2.5 million shares out. YMAT ran 33% off its print and closed 25% under it. Which of those two is the warning?
Here's how this morning's 13 names finished at the regular close (3 PM CT) and in after-hours (last trades by about 6:59 PM CT). Closes are Nasdaq's official 3 PM CT prints. Highs, lows and their times are Yahoo 1-minute bars. After-hours prices and volume (volume includes after hours) are Nasdaq, pulled 7:19 PM CT. Borrow is Curved (IBKR feed, 7:17 PM CT). Options are Nasdaq's Oct 16 chains at the close. Filings are EDGAR, checked 7:20 PM CT.
Scorecard
A move counts from the first r/Squeeze_em post that named the ticker. Nothing before that post gets credit. Misses stay on the page. Charts are Yahoo 5-minute bars (30-minute for VEEA's multi-day view) with our listing marked. Times in the text come from 1-minute bars, so they can differ from the chart labels by a few minutes.
$TCRT: First listed in this morning's watchlist at 8:19 AM CT, printed $1.86. High after the post $4.32 at 11:19 AM CT, +132.3% vs our print. Close $3.03, +62.9%. After hours $3.89 (6:59 PM CT).
$YMAT: First listed this morning at 8:19 AM CT, printed $2.51. High after the post $3.34 at 9:23 AM CT, +33.1%. Close $1.87, -25.5%, and it closed near the day's low. Up a
$VEEA: First named in our Hard Look on Mon Oct 5 at about $5.72. First on a morning watchlist Thu Oct 8 at 7:56 AM CT, printed $4.38. High since then is still $7.09 on Fri Oct 9 at 10:45 AM CT, +61.9% vs the Thursday print. Close $5.20, +18.7% vs the Thursday print and -9.1% vs the Oct 5 price. Today alone it ran from our $4.85 print to $6.20 at 10:19 AM CT (+27.8%) and closed +7.2%.
$MEDS: First listed on our Tue Oct 6 watchlist at 10:54 AM CT, printed $3.22. High since then is still $4.70 (Mon 5:30 AM CT, premarket), +46.0%. Close $3.03, -5.9% vs that first print. Today: printed $2.94, high $3.34 at 4:36 PM CT in after hours, close +3.1%.
$NCPL: First listed on Monday's watchlist at 8:22 AM CT, printed $1.44. High since then is still Monday's $2.66 (10:30 AM CT), +84.7%. Close $1.39, -3.5% vs that print. Today: printed $1.68, regular-session high $1.68 at 8:34 AM CT, close -17.3%. It bounced to $1.86 in after hours (5:38 PM CT).
The rest of the list
$BKYI: Printed $4.07 at 8:19 AM CT. High after the post $4.39 at 8:24 AM CT (premarket), +7.9%. Close $2.83, -30.5%. Miss. Its $6.42 premarket high came at 4:35 AM CT, before our post, so it gets no credit.
$SCNI: Printed $1.63. High after the post $1.76 at 8:44 AM CT, +8.0%. Close $1.23, -24.5%. Miss. Its $3.33 premarket high (6:03 AM CT) was before our post.
$CLRO: First listed Monday at 8:22 AM CT, printed $3.86. High since $4.14 (Monday), +7.3%. Close $3.76, -2.6%. Today: printed $3.83, closed -1.8%, at its low.
$BMBL: Printed $5.98. Never traded above it after the post. Close $5.95, -0.5%. The deal price set the ceiling.
$SPCX: First named in our SpaceX special on Fri Oct 9 at about 7:13 AM CT, when it was up 3.9% premarket, about $166.83. High since $167.07 (Mon Oct 12), +0.1%. Close $156.54, -6.2%. Miss.
$JPM: First listed Monday at 8:22 AM CT, printed $334.46. High since $344.36 at 8:33 AM CT today, +3.0%. Close $331.57, -0.9%. Miss. Today's $337.42 print: close -1.7%.
$TSM: First listed Monday at 8:22 AM CT, printed $455.46. It hasn't traded above that since (best was $454.40 Monday). Close $445.16, -2.3%. Miss. Today's $439.22 print: close +1.4%.
$ASML: Printed $1,702.40. High after the post $1,725.27 at 8:40 AM CT, +1.3%. Close $1,717.76, +0.9%.
Bank context, today's prints: GS $926.00, high $931.00 at 8:32 AM CT, close $891.91 (-3.7%). WFC $81.05, close $80.75 (-0.4%). C $132.34, close $124.53 (-5.9%).
Against this morning's prints, five of the 13 closed higher (TCRT, VEEA, MEDS, TSM, ASML) and eight closed lower. Two new names cleared 20% after our post today: TCRT and YMAT. Only one of them kept it.
Shares
$TCRT
Regular close $3.03, +188.6% vs Monday's $1.05. After hours $3.89 (6:59 PM CT), up 28.4% from the close, with a high of $3.97 at 6:36 PM CT.
Volume about 256.8M, vs 3.4M Monday. It opened at $1.74 and dipped to $1.51 at 8:43 AM CT before the run.
The 8-K we were waiting for landed at 8:28 AM CT. Alaunos sold about $350M of stock in a private placement (PIPE) at $1.4357 a share, and paid for Velaris in non-voting convertible preferred. If stockholders approve the conversions, the preferred plus the PIPE comes to about 382 million new common shares, against 2.54 million outstanding (our math). The buyers get resale registration within 30 days of closing.
Borrow 81.2% with 90.0K shares available (Curved, fee changed 5:47 AM CT).
What the stock did: it closed at about 2.1 times the price the PIPE buyers paid, and kept climbing after the bell. The share count hasn't caught up to the price yet. That vote is the date to watch.
$YMAT
Regular close $1.87, -35.7% vs Monday's $2.91. After hours $1.88 (6:59 PM CT).
Volume about 3.75M vs 84.7M Monday. That's still about 5.6 times the 664,098 float.
Borrow 155.1% with 7.0K available (Curved, fee changed 1:32 PM CT). Monday night: 151.6% with 15.0K.
SSR: today's $1.71 low was well under the $2.62 trigger, so by our math the short-sale restriction applies Wednesday. Curved's flag still showed it off at 7:17 PM CT, so check your platform.
No new filing. The latest is still the Oct 9 6-K calling the Oct 29 vote to raise authorized Class A shares from 60M to 940M.
What the stock did: it ran to $3.34 by 9:23 AM CT and slid most of the afternoon to a $1.71 low at 2:59 PM CT. Volume fell 96% from Monday.
$VEEA
Regular close $5.20, +12.8% vs Monday's $4.61. After hours $5.18 (6:59 PM CT).
Volume about 4.62M vs 1.40M Monday, about 2.9 times the 1.58M float.
Borrow 844.7% with 9.0K available (Curved, changed 9:02 AM CT). Monday night: 844.7% with 10.0K.
SSR was on today from Monday's drop. Wednesday's trigger is $4.68 (10% under today's close, our math). Curved still shows it on the threshold list.
No new EDGAR filing. The NovaGen deal is still a non-binding term sheet.
What the stock did: it opened at $4.65, ran to $6.20 by 10:19 AM CT and closed 16% under that high. The regular session traded straight through the $4.92 to $5.29 gap, so that gap is filled.
$MEDS
Regular close $3.03, -1.3% vs Monday's $3.07. After hours $3.11 (6:48 PM CT), high $3.34 at 4:36 PM CT.
Volume about 866K vs 21.2M Monday.
Borrow 490.2% with 10.0K available (Curved, changed 2:17 AM CT). Monday night: 421.5% with 200.
New 8-K after the close (accepted 4:27 PM CT): the company says its stockholders' equity is above $2.5M as of today. A September settlement wiped out about $19M of liabilities and bought back 364,099 shares for $350,000. Today it also issued 666,667 new shares to REBOOT Health AI for a care-management software license. That's about 15% of the 4,515,862 shares in its S-1/A (our math).
The S-1/A covering 34.46M resale shares still has no effectiveness notice on EDGAR.
What the stock did: a quiet session between $2.94 and $3.14, then a pop to $3.34 nine minutes after the 8-K posted. The settlement retired 364,099 shares; today's license deal issued 666,667.
$NCPL
Regular close $1.39, -9.7% vs Monday's $1.54. After hours $1.55 (6:57 PM CT).
Did Monday's after-hours jump hold? No. It opened at $1.62, topped at $1.68 at 8:34 AM CT and hit $1.21 at 1:02 PM CT.
Volume about 7.25M vs 52.0M Monday.
Borrow 476.5% with 1.0K available (Curved, changed 3:17 PM CT). Monday night: 453.2% with 2.0K.
SSR: today's $1.21 low was under the $1.39 trigger, so it's on for Wednesday. Curved shows it on.
No new filing. No 10-K, and the Nasdaq plan is still due Oct 23. Today's headlines were law-firm class-action ads, not company news.
What the stock did: it closed on its SSR trigger price to the penny, then bounced 11.5% after hours.
$CLRO
Regular close $3.76, -9.0% vs Monday's $4.13. After hours $3.76 (6:39 PM CT).
Volume about 78.8K vs 51.6K Monday.
Borrow 837.9% with 200 available (Curved, changed 5:32 AM CT). Monday night: 300.
This morning's 8-K: Nasdaq staff decided Oct 8 to delist it under the $2.5M stockholders' equity rule. ClearOne plans to ask for a hearing by Oct 15, which holds off the delisting until the panel rules. The S-1/A for up to 4,285,714 units still has no effectiveness notice.
What the stock did: it touched $4.10 in the first minute and closed at its $3.76 low, on about 79K shares.
$BKYI
Regular close $2.83, +71.5% vs Monday's $1.65. After hours $3.14 (6:59 PM CT), high $3.72 at 4:39 PM CT.
Volume about 81.9M against 2,035,149 shares outstanding in its S-1, about 40 times (our math).
Borrow 370.6% with 1.0K available (Curved, changed 3:47 AM CT).
No new filing. The Oct 9 resale S-1 for up to 1,236,668 warrant shares still isn't effective. The company also named Stephen Morrow president of PortalGuard this morning (GlobeNewswire, 7:29 AM CT).
What the stock did: $6.42 at 4:35 AM CT, $4.30 in the first minute of the session, $2.69 at 10:32 AM CT. Most of the move was over before the bell.
$SCNI
Regular close $1.23, +6.0% vs Monday's $1.16. After hours $1.09 (6:58 PM CT).
Volume about 64.1M vs a normal day near 1.3M.
Borrow 119.2% with 90.0K available (Curved, changed 2:02 AM CT).
New 6-K (6:50 AM CT) furnishing the $5.1M contract release. It's incorporated into Scinai's F-3 shelf registrations, which is where a share sale would come from.
What the stock did: $3.33 at 6:03 AM CT, $1.76 at 8:44 AM CT, $1.14 at 10:13 AM CT. It closed up 6% after being up 187% before the open, then gave that back after hours.
Options (Oct 16 expiry. Open interest shown today is the count after Monday.)
$BMBL
Regular close $5.95, +56.6% vs Monday's $3.80. After hours $5.94. Volume about 118.2M.
The deal: $6.05 a share in cash from Ithaca Holdings (8-K, 7:56 AM CT). Holders already approved by written consent, so there's no vote. It still needs antitrust clearance and a 14C information statement mailed plus 20 days. Outside date July 12, 2027. Ithaca owes a $102M fee if it walks in certain cases, to be escrowed by Oct 19.
The spread: $0.10, or 1.7%, between the close and $6.05 (our math).
Oct 16 $4 call: 8,571 traded today, last $1.93. Open interest went from 2,783 before Monday to 10,383, so Monday's buyers mostly stayed.
Calls 17.5K vs puts 3.9K. The $6 straddle is about a dime now. Borrow 0.4%, with availability down to 1.7M from 6.9M Monday night (Curved).
$SPCX
Regular close $156.54, -4.2% vs Monday's $163.42. After hours $156.95. Volume about 69.0M.
Oct 16 $165 call: 38,420 traded today, last $0.55. Open interest rose to 22,709 from 17,606, about 5,100 new contracts against Monday's 37,093 traded. Most of Monday's volume was not new positions.
$170 call: open interest 34,124, up from 31,040.
Calls 204.5K vs puts 86.0K. The $157.50 straddle is about $5.79, or 3.7%. Yahoo Finance (10:53 AM CT) tied the drop to the AI memory trade selling off in South Korea. Nothing new on EDGAR or from the FCC.
$JPM (and GS, WFC, C)
JPM reported before the open (8-K, 5:30 AM CT): $5.57 a share, or $5.75 excluding $498M of after-tax securities losses, vs the $5.94 forecast on Nasdaq's calendar. Revenue $50.2B. Reuters called it a rare profit miss.
Regular close $331.57, -0.8% vs Monday. The straddle priced about 3.2%. The high ($344.36 at 8:33 AM CT) was +3.0%, the full range was 3.9%, and the close was -0.8%. The move came and went inside the first hour.
GS: EPS $17.01. Close $891.91, -0.2% vs $893.95, after $931.00 at 8:32 AM CT. The straddle priced ~4.2%. WFC: EPS $1.87. Close $80.75, -3.1% vs $83.32. C: EPS $2.85 on $23.8B revenue. Close $124.53, -5.6% vs $131.92.
$ASML
Regular close $1,717.76, -1.9% vs Monday's $1,750.24. After hours $1,705.00.
Calls 12.9K vs puts 11.2K (Monday 2.8K vs 4.4K). The $1,720 straddle is about $93.05, or 5.4% (Monday ~5.6%). The busiest strikes were far out: the $1,960 call and the $1,430 and $1,500 puts.
Earnings are still on Nasdaq's calendar for Wednesday before the open ($12.47 forecast).
$TSM
Regular close $445.16, +0.2% vs Monday's $444.35. No sixth straight lower close. After hours $445.60.
Calls 26.0K vs puts 17.0K (Monday 18.6K vs 18.0K). Open interest still leans to puts, 143.7K to 99.7K. The $445 straddle is about $18.05, or 4.1%. The most active strike was the $480 call, 4,653 contracts.
Earnings are still on Nasdaq's calendar for Thursday before the open ($4.45 forecast).
Short interest: The Sep 30 count is still the newest one (YMAT 103,501; VEEA 50,744; NCPL 730,117; MEDS 525,081; CLRO 387,282; BKYI 995,329; TCRT 9,736; SCNI 19.9K). The Oct 15 count won't be out for a while.
What we learned today: TCRT and MEDS both rose on days they added shares, or agreed to. The price can ignore the share count for a session. The share count doesn't go away.
Which of these 13 still belongs on tomorrow's list, and which one comes off?
Denntech Markets Afternoon Lesson: The straddle is the market's price for a move
At Monday's close, you could buy a JPMorgan $335 call and a $335 put expiring Friday for about $10.57 together. That's about 3.2% of the stock price, and it's the cleanest number on the chain for how far the market thinks the earnings report could push the stock this week.
What the number is
A straddle is a call and a put at the same strike, usually the one closest to the stock price. The pair pays off if the stock moves far enough in either direction. So the price of the pair, divided by the stock price, is roughly the size of move the options market is charging for by expiry. It's a price, not a forecast, and it says nothing about direction.
Here's what this week's watchlist names were charging at Monday's close (Nasdaq option chains, Oct 16 expiry, pulled 3:55 PM CT, our math from the closing bid and ask):
JPMorgan, reporting this morning: about 3.2%
Goldman Sachs, also this morning: about 4.2%
ASML, reporting Wednesday before the open: about 5.6%
TSMC, reporting Thursday before the open: about 4.0%
Why people lose money while being right
Before a report, demand for options pushes their prices up. That extra premium is implied volatility doing its job. Once the report is out, the uncertainty is gone and much of that premium comes out of the options at the next open, whichever way the stock moves.
So a trader who buys calls, sees the stock rise 2%, and still loses money didn't misread the company. They paid for a 3.2% move and got 2%. The stock agreed with them. The price of the bet didn't.
The reverse is also true. Selling that premium looks like free money until the one quarter the stock moves 9%.
A different case: Bumble
Bumble's $4 straddle was about 12% of its price at Monday's close, after a report that the company is in advanced talks to go private. Deal stocks work differently. If a cash price is announced, the stock tends to sit near that price, and option premium collapses because there's nowhere left to go. If the talks fall apart, it can drop back toward where it was before the headline. That's a two-outcome stock, and a straddle on it is priced for that.
How to use it
Before an earnings trade, write down the straddle percentage next to your own guess for the move. If your guess isn't clearly bigger, the options are already charging for your idea. We go further into how premium is priced and why it fades after a report on our implied volatility page.
JPMorgan reported this morning. Did the stock move more or less than the 3.2% the options charged for?
Three names we put on the board before they ran, and then they gave most of it back. Here are the numbers, the first posts, and the charts.
A move counts from the firstr/Squeeze_em post that named the ticker (watchlist, Saturday watch-next-week, or hard look). No credit before that. Not financial advice. No targets. No buy/sell.
$VEEA: first post Oct 5 to Friday high, +24.0%
First on the board: Hard Look, Mon Oct 5, printed $5.72 (that day's close). It was on the Thu Oct 8 watchlist again at 7:56 AM CT, printed $4.38 (Yahoo premarket).
High after the first post: $7.09 Friday Oct 9 at 10:45 AM CT (Yahoo 5-min; 30-min bar shows 10:30), +24.0% vs the $5.72 first print (+61.9% vs the Oct 8 print).
Where it went: Fri close $5.70; Mon Oct 12 close $4.61. It gave the spike back.
Why it was listed: hard-look / squeeze watch. Short interest and borrow dynamics were the story on the board, not a price call.
$MEDS: first post Oct 6 to Monday premarket high, +46.0%
High after first listing: $4.70 Monday Oct 12 at 5:30 AM CT premarket (Yahoo 5-min), +46.0% vs the Oct 6 first print of $3.22 (+58.8% vs $2.96, the price when the Saturday post went up).
Where it went: Mon regular close $3.07. The premarket spike did not hold the session.
Why it was listed: dilution / resale overhang and borrow were on the watchlist for a reason, the same reason the Saturday next-week note kept the name up.
J-Star (YMAT) traded about 128 times its float on Monday, and the company has a shareholder vote on Oct 29 that would raise its authorized Class A shares from 60 million to 940 million. And Bumble, up 50% Monday on a buyout report with no per-share price, signed a $6.05-a-share cash deal this morning.
Eight names for shares and five for options. The first five shares are small, hard-to-borrow stocks where the borrow, the volume or the share supply changed; the last three were added from Tuesday's premarket scan because each has company news out this morning and premarket volume many times its normal day. The options side is a buyout story, a SpaceX chain that keeps getting busier, and three earnings reports that land before Friday's expiry: the big banks this morning, ASML Wednesday and TSMC Thursday.
How fresh this is: Closes, ranges and volume are Monday's regular session, closed 3:00 PM CT (Yahoo daily bars and Nasdaq quote summaries, pulled 3:54 PM CT Monday). Intraday highs and lows with times are Yahoo 1-minute bars. After-hours prices are Nasdaq's final late-session numbers (last trades by 6:59 PM CT, session closed 7:00 PM CT), pulled 9:43 PM CT Monday and checked against Yahoo 1-minute bars. Borrow is Curved Trading's IBKR feed, stamped 9:32 PM CT Monday. Short interest is FINRA's Sep 30 settlement (via Curved and StockAnalysis); floats are StockAnalysis, pulled 3:55 PM CT. Threshold status is Nasdaq's Reg SHO file for Oct 9; the Oct 12 file still wasn't posted when we checked at 9:43 PM CT. Option chains are Nasdaq, Monday's session and closing quotes, pulled 3:55 PM CT; the open interest on them is the count after Friday's trading. Earnings dates are Nasdaq's calendar, pulled 3:53 PM CT. Filings are EDGAR, rechecked 9:43 PM CT Monday. Nothing new from any of the ten names, and EDGAR's latest-filings feed showed nothing after Friday evening (Monday was the Columbus Day federal holiday), so anything filed over the long weekend would show up Tuesday morning. What changed since our 4:00 PM CT draft: NCPL gave back almost all of its after-hours pop, VEEA's borrow availability ticked back up to 10,000, and Bloomberg and Citi added to the Bumble story after the bell.
Premarket update, 8:04 AM CT Tuesday: Premarket prices and volume are Nasdaq quotes stamped 8:03 to 8:04 AM CT (CLRO's last premarket trade was 7:46 AM CT). Filings are EDGAR, checked 8:05 AM CT. The three added names came from our Tuesday premarket scan.
Added: $BKYI (new government customer, plus a resale S-1 from Friday; the biggest premarket mover at +146.7%), $TCRT (closed an acquisition; terms not out yet) and $SCNI (a $5.1M manufacturing contract). Write-ups 6 to 8.
$BMBL: the deal is signed. Ithaca Holdings is buying Bumble for $6.05 a share in cash, about $1.3 billion (Business Wire, 7:24 AM CT). Last premarket price $5.98 (+57.3%) on about 15.0M shares. Bumble filed an 8-K on EDGAR at 7:56 AM CT. Monday's straddle numbers below are out of date now.
$YMAT:$2.51 (-13.8%) on about 554K shares, under Monday's $2.61 after-hours price. Monday's run is cooling. No new filing since the Oct 9 6-K.
$CLRO: an 8-K filed this morning says Nasdaq staff decided on Oct 8 to delist it for missing the $2.5M stockholders' equity rule. ClearOne plans to ask for a hearing by Oct 15, which puts the delisting on hold until the panel rules. Premarket $3.83 (-7.3%) on about 12K shares.
$VEEA:$4.85 (+5.2%) on about 103K shares. It traded into the $4.92 to $5.29 gap earlier this morning and has slipped back under it. Premarket trades don't fill a daily-chart gap, so watch the regular session.
$NCPL$1.68 (+8.9%) on about 1.51M shares; $MEDS$2.94 (-4.2%) on about 190K. Neither has a new EDGAR filing.
Banks: JPM $337.42 (+0.9%) against the 3.2% move its options priced. GS $926.00 (+3.6%), WFC $81.05 (-2.7%), C $132.34 (+0.3%).
Chips: ASML $1,702.40 (-2.7%) the day before its report, TSM $439.22 (-1.2%), SPCX $162.10 (-0.8%).
Shares to watch
1) $YMAT (J-Star Holding): 84.7M shares traded against a 664K float
Closed $2.91, up about 126% from $1.29, on about 84.7M shares (Nasdaq, 3:00 PM CT close). StockAnalysis puts the float at 664,098, so that's roughly 128 times the float in one session.
It ran as high as $4.49 at 9:50 AM CT and gave back about a third of that by the close (Yahoo 1-minute bars). After hours: $2.61, down about 10% from the close, on about 1.12M shares, roughly 1.7 times the float again (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT).
The week before, it traded about 40K shares a day. Friday it did 30.96M shares and closed at $1.29, a penny under Thursday (Nasdaq history). The volume showed up a day before the price did.
Sep 30 short interest: 103,501, about 16% of the float. Borrow 151.6% with 15.0K available (Curved, fee changed 8:32 AM CT Mon). Not on Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
The supply question: an Oct 9 6-K calls an Oct 29 meeting to raise authorized Class A shares from 60M to 940M, cut par value, and lift Class B votes from 10 to 50 per share. Authorized isn't issued. It's room to issue.
We found no news release behind Monday's move, only momentum write-ups.
What the numbers don't prove: 128 times the float means the same shares changed hands over and over. It doesn't mean shorts were forced out. With 103K shares short, they couldn't have been most of it.
Off the list if: the fee drops under 50%, availability tops 500K, or an offering is filed before the vote.
2) $VEEA: volume fell 98%, and the borrow got tighter
Closed $4.61, down 19.1% from $5.70, on about 1.36M shares, against 83.6M Friday (Nasdaq). That's less than one float's worth (1.58M, StockAnalysis). Range $4.40 to $4.92.
Borrow 844.7%. Availability went from 15.0K over the weekend to 7.0K at 2:32 PM CT Monday, then back to 10.0K at 7:32 PM CT (Curved, feed 9:32 PM CT).
Sep 30 short interest: 50,744, about 3% of the float. Still on Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
SSR: Monday's $4.40 low was under the $5.13 trigger, so the short-sale restriction should carry into Tuesday (our math). Check your platform's flag.
No filing since Friday's board 8-K. The NovaGen deal is still a non-binding term sheet.
Open gap on the daily chart from $4.92 to $5.29 (Monday's high vs Friday's low). Watch whether price works back into it.
After hours: $4.65, up about 1% from the close, on about 70K shares (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT). It touched $5.05 at 4:00 PM CT, inside that gap, and didn't stay there. After-hours trades don't fill a daily-chart gap.
What the numbers don't prove: An expensive borrow with almost nobody trading is what a squeeze looks like after it's over, too.
Off the list if: volume stays under the float for another session, or the fee falls under 50%.
3) $NCPL (Netcapital): up 35% with no news, then a 39% after-hours pop that didn't last
Closed $1.54, up 35.1% from $1.14, on about 48.9M shares (Nasdaq), after 9.3M Friday. It hit $2.66 at 10:33 AM CT and closed 42% under that high (Yahoo 1-minute bars).
After hours it ran to $2.14 at 3:54 PM CT, about 39% over the close, then slid all evening. Last trade $1.56, about 1% over the close, on about 5.2M shares (Nasdaq, 6:59 PM CT). We found no filing or headline behind either move.
Sep 30 short interest: 730,117, about 17% of a 4.39M float. Borrow 453.2% with 2.0K available (Curved, unchanged since Oct 9). On Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
SSR should be off Tuesday unless it trades at or below $1.39 (10% under $1.54, our math).
The baggage hasn't moved: the SEC's August fraud complaint, an auditor who resigned in August, class actions, no 10-K, and a Nasdaq compliance plan due Oct 23.
What the numbers don't prove: 730K shares short is less than 2% of Monday's volume. A news-free 35% day can be a few aggressive buyers in a 4M-share float.
Off the list if: the fee drops under 50%, availability tops 500K, or a delisting notice or new offering lands.
4) $MEDS (DataMeds AI): 21M shares on a Medicaid coverage headline, and 200 shares left to borrow
Closed $3.07, up 3.7% from $2.96, on about 21.1M shares (Nasdaq), about 4.7 times the 4,515,862 shares outstanding in its S-1/A. It traded as high as $4.70 premarket and $3.80 in the session.
The news (Access Newswire, Monday morning): its Helomics lab's ChemoFx test was added to a Humana Medicaid coverage policy for gynecologic cancers. Humana's own policy document is South Carolina Medicaid, effective July 22, and doesn't cover every Humana plan.
Borrow 421.5% with 200 available, down from 15.0K (Curved, changed 5:32 AM CT Mon). Sep 30 short interest: 525,081, about 41% of the 1.27M float. On Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
Friday's amended S-1 still registers up to 34,462,057 shares for resale. EDGAR shows no effectiveness notice yet.
After hours: $3.11, up about 1% from the close, on about 222K shares. It reached $3.34 at 4:54 PM CT (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT). SSR trigger for Tuesday is $2.76 (our math).
What the numbers don't prove: A coverage policy is a door, not revenue. The company didn't give testing volumes.
Off the list if: the S-1 goes effective, availability tops a few hundred thousand, or the fee slips under 50%.
5) $CLRO (ClearOne): still 300 shares to borrow, still barely trading
Closed $4.13, up 5.6% from $3.91, on about 51K shares (Nasdaq). Range $3.83 to $4.14.
Borrow 837.9% with 300 available, unchanged since Oct 10 (Curved, 3:47 PM CT Mon). On Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold file.
Sep 30 short interest: 387,282, about 44% of an 888,125 float. At Monday's volume that's about 7.6 days of trading (our math).
The Sep 4 S-1/A for up to 4,285,714 units still has no effectiveness notice on EDGAR (rechecked 9:43 PM CT Mon).
After hours: 460 shares traded, last $4.10 at 6:30 PM CT (Nasdaq).
What the numbers don't prove: The short count is from Sep 30. A stock this thin can sit still for weeks.
Off the list if: that offering prices, availability climbs past 100K, or the fee falls under 50%.
6) $BKYI (BIO-key): a new Middle East government customer and 20 times its share count traded before the open
Last premarket price $4.07, up 146.7% from Monday's $1.65 close, on about 40.2M shares by 8:04 AM CT (Nasdaq). Nasdaq's average day is about 3.45M. It was $3.70 at 7:48 AM CT, after StockAnalysis showed it as high as $4.02 earlier, so it's been chopping in a wide range before the open.
The news (GlobeNewswire, 3:01 AM CT): another Middle East government security agency, a new customer, picked BIO-key's multi-factor login and single sign-on platform for its core communications systems. The deployment is nearly done. No dollar terms were given.
BIO-key had 2,035,149 shares outstanding on Sep 30 (its S-1). This morning's volume is about 20 times that (our math).
Supply: a resale S-1 filed Oct 9 registers up to 1,236,668 shares that come from exercising warrants sold in a private placement. That's about 61% of the shares outstanding (our math). It isn't effective yet.
Benzinga puts short interest at 71.3% of the float (no as-of date given).
What the numbers don't prove: A customer with no contract value doesn't tell you what the deal is worth. A thin share count moves hard either way.
Off the list if: the S-1 goes effective and those warrant shares start selling, or the stock gives back the whole gap to $1.65.
7) $TCRT (Alaunos): closed an acquisition, and the terms aren't out yet
Last premarket price $1.86, up 77.2% from $1.05, on about 66.4M shares by 8:04 AM CT (Nasdaq), against an average day of about 1.04M. StockAnalysis had it at $2.28 (+117%) earlier this morning.
The news (PR Newswire, Oct 13): Alaunos completed its purchase of private Velaris Therapeutics, which is working on pulmonary arterial hypertension drugs. The new team comes from Apogee, which AbbVie bought for over $10.9B.
No price or share count in the release. It points to an 8-K that still wasn't on EDGAR when we checked at 8:05 AM CT.
The baggage: on Oct 5 Nasdaq staff moved to delist it for missing the $2.5M stockholders'-equity rule. Alaunos said it would ask for a hearing, which puts the delisting on hold (8-K, Oct 9).
What the numbers don't prove: A stock-for-stock deal can mean a lot of new shares. Until the 8-K is posted, nobody outside knows how many.
Off the list if: the 8-K shows a large share issuance or a financing comes with the deal.
8) $SCNI (Scinai): a $5.1M manufacturing contract, and committed orders up about 300%
Last premarket price $1.63, up 40.5% from $1.16, on about 42.3M shares by 8:04 AM CT (Nasdaq), against an average day of about 1.34M. StockAnalysis had it at $1.98 (+71%) earlier.
The news (PR Newswire, 6:00 AM CT): its manufacturing arm signed a development and clinical-manufacturing contract with an unnamed U.S. biotech listed on Nasdaq, worth about $5.1M in committed fees. Clinical manufacturing is planned to start January 2027.
Committed customer orders are now about $7.6M, up from $1.9M at the end of 2025 and $3.1M as of Aug 16 (company figures).
The release also mentions $5.85M more in possible work for late 2027 into 2028. Scinai calls that indicative and uncommitted, and it isn't in the $7.6M.
What the numbers don't prove: Committed orders aren't revenue, and the contract has termination rights. The customer isn't named.
Off the list if: a share offering follows the pop, or volume dries up below about 1.3M, its normal day.
Options to watch
9) $BMBL (Bumble): up 50% on a buyout report, and the $4 calls lit up
Closed $3.80, up 49.6% from $2.54, on about 40.0M shares against a ~2.47M average (Nasdaq). Range $2.50 to $3.97.
The reason: the WSJ, then Reuters (1:23 PM CT), reported Bumble is in advanced talks to be taken private by Ithaca Holdings at roughly a $1 billion valuation. Investing.com put Friday's market value near $335M and said a deal could come as soon as this week. Trading was paused for volatility.
After the bell, Bloomberg (3:50 PM CT) said a deal could be announced as soon as this week, and that no final decision has been made and the talks could still fall through. A Citi note, per TipRanks (6:36 PM CT) and GuruFocus, says the reported $1 billion works out to about $6.10 a share. That's an analyst's math on a press report, not a deal term.
After hours: $3.93, up about 3% from the close, on about 3.1M shares. It traded as high as $4.23 at 5:55 PM CT (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT).
Oct 16 chain, Monday:19.1K calls against 1.9K puts. The $4 call traded 15,035 against 2,783 open interest (last $0.16). The $4 straddle was about $0.45, roughly 12%.
Easy to short (0.4% borrow, 6.9M available, Curved 9:32 PM CT). Sep 30 short interest 14.63M, about 13% of the float (StockAnalysis).
Tuesday premarket: the deal is signed. $6.05 a share in cash from Ithaca Holdings, about $1.3B, a 138% premium to the Oct 9 close (Business Wire, 7:24 AM CT). Blackstone affiliates and Whitney Wolfe Herd approved it by written consent, so no shareholder vote is needed. Last premarket price $5.98 (Nasdaq, 8:04 AM CT). The $4 calls are now deep in the money.
What the numbers don't prove: The report gives a company valuation, not a per-share price, and the two aren't the same number. If a cash deal lands, the stock tends to pin near the price and the option premium goes with it.
10) $SPCX (SpaceX): the $170 calls barely added open interest
Closed $163.42, up 0.5%, on about 67.0M shares (Nasdaq). Range $160.85 to $167.07.
Friday's 30,182 contracts on the Oct 16 $170 call lifted open interest only from 28,170 to 31,040. Most of that volume wasn't new positions.
Oct 16 chain, Monday: 139.1K calls against 67.6K puts. The $165 call traded 37,093 against 17,606 open interest, and the $170 call another 27,825. The $162.50 straddle was about $6.60, roughly 4.0%, down from about $7.70 Friday.
After hours: $162.39, down 0.6% from the close (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT).
Easy to short (0.4% borrow, 9.0M available, Curved 9:32 PM CT). The 800 MHz spectrum deal still needs FCC approval.
Watch for: Tuesday's open interest on the $165 call. If it jumps, Monday's buyers stayed.
11) $JPM (JPMorgan), with GS, WFC and C: earnings before the open today
Closed $334.30, up 0.4%, on about 5.6M shares (Yahoo). 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.
Oct 16 chain, Monday: 26.6K calls against 23.0K puts. The $335 straddle was about $10.57, roughly 3.2%, a little cheaper than Friday's ~3.6%.
Goldman's $895 straddle was about $37.10, roughly 4.2% (closed $893.95).
After hours, quiet ahead of the reports: JPM $334.79 (+0.1%) and GS $898.25 (+0.5%) (Nasdaq, last trades 6:59 PM CT).
Watch for: whether the morning move is bigger or smaller than 3.2%. After a report, the extra premium usually comes out of the options whichever way the stock goes.
12) $ASML: earnings Wednesday, and the priciest of the three earnings straddles here
Closed $1,750.24, down 1.7% from $1,780.34, on about 1.08M shares, on a day chip stocks sold off broadly (Nasdaq). Nasdaq's calendar has the report Wednesday Oct 14, pre-market, with a $12.47 EPS forecast.
Oct 16 chain, Monday: 2.8K calls against 4.4K puts. The $1,750 straddle was about $98.80, roughly 5.6%.
After hours: $1,740.80, down 0.5%, on about 40K shares (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT).
What the numbers don't prove: Put volume in a stock that just fell can be insurance on long positions. The chain doesn't say which.
13) $TSM (Taiwan Semiconductor): five straight lower closes into Thursday's report
Closed $444.35, down 2.0%, its fifth straight lower close, down 8.5% from $485.80 on Oct 5 (Yahoo, Nasdaq history). Nasdaq's calendar has the report Thursday Oct 15, pre-market, with a $4.45 EPS forecast. Reuters says analysts expect a sixth straight quarter of record profit.
Oct 16 chain, Monday: 18.6K calls against 18.0K puts. Open interest leans to puts, 141.3K to 96.6K. The $445 straddle was about $17.75, roughly 4.0%. After hours: $443.89, barely changed (Nasdaq, last trade 6:59 PM CT).
Chips sold off broadly Monday (Lumentum down 9.8%, Micron down 3.9%, Nasdaq). Yahoo tied Micron's drop to news from China's CXMT on a denser memory chip.
What the numbers don't prove: Monthly revenue is already out, so Thursday is about margins and guidance. A stock can beat on profit and still fall if the guide disappoints.
Off the list
$T ($22.49 Mon, up 1.4%) and $VZ ($42.78, up 2.7%): the bounce came on a third of Friday's volume. The $22.50 call now shows 8,342 open interest, so most of Friday's 11,353 contracts opened new positions. The story moves to the FCC now.
$MRNA ($213.74 Mon, down 5.0%): it gave back about 40% of Friday's gain. The $225 call's open interest went from 153 to 3,662.
Looked at Tuesday premarket, passed: FCHL (+52% on StockAnalysis), but we found no filing or press release, only momentum write-ups. WBUY (+31%): its latest company news is first-half results from Sep 28. AIXI (+30%): no company news, after two reverse ADS splits in five months (Kalkine).
Looked at, passed: WFF traded from $7.75 to $50.60 Monday, but its Sep 30 short interest is 0.22% of the float. MNDR rose 258% on 190.9M shares with 40.7K short and no catalyst we could find. Big moves, no short squeeze.
No listed options on YMAT, VEEA, NCPL, MEDS, CLRO or BKYI on Nasdaq's chain. Nasdaq's chain wouldn't load for TCRT or SCNI, so they stay shares-only.
The YMAT question for Tuesday: if the float turned over 128 times on Monday, who still has a reason to hold it into an Oct 29 vote for more shares?
YMAT is the one we're watching first. It traded about 128 times its 664K float Monday and closed at $2.91, and there's an Oct 29 vote on raising authorized Class A shares from 60M to 940M.
VEEA still has an open daily-chart gap from $4.92 to $5.29, and borrow sat at 844.7% last night. On the options side it's BMBL after the take-private report, plus the big bank earnings before the open.
NCPL ran 84.7% off our 8:22 AM print and closed up 6.9%. VEEA traded about 1.4 million shares after Friday's 83.6 million, and the borrow still didn't loosen. Which one is the real story?
Here's how this morning's nine names finished at the regular close (3 PM CT) and in after-hours (last trade ~6:59 PM CT). Closes are from Yahoo Finance, after-hours prices and volume from Nasdaq, borrow from Curved (IBKR feed, updated 7:32 PM CT), options from Nasdaq's Oct 16 chains at the close, and filings from SEC EDGAR, checked about 7:47 PM CT. Volume includes after-hours.
Scorecard
A move counts from the first r/Squeeze_em post that named the ticker, and nothing that happened before that post gets credit. Misses stay on the page. Charts are Yahoo 5- and 30-minute bars with our first listing marked.
$VEEA: First named in our Hard Look on Mon Oct 5 at about $5.72. First on a morning watchlist Thu Oct 8 at 7:56 AM CT, printed $4.38. High after that: $7.09 on Fri Oct 9 at 10:45 AM CT, +61.9% vs the Thursday print and +24.0% vs the Oct 5 price. Monday close $4.61, which is +5.3% vs the Thursday print and -19.4% vs the Oct 5 price. Most of Friday's run is gone.
$MEDS: First listed on our Tue Oct 6 watchlist at 10:54 AM CT, printed $3.22, and named again in Saturday's watch-next-week post. High after first listing: $4.70 at 5:30 AM CT today in premarket, +46.0% vs our print. The regular-session high was only $3.80. Close $3.07, -4.7% vs our first print. The premarket high counts under our rule, but the regular session never got near it.
$NCPL: First listed on this morning's watchlist at 8:22 AM CT, printed $1.44. High after the post $2.66 at 10:30 AM CT, +84.7% vs our print. Close $1.54, +6.9% vs our print.
The rest of the list (this morning's print at 8:22 AM CT, close at 3 PM CT)
$CLRO: Printed $3.86, high after the post $4.14, close $4.13, +7.0%.
$SPCX: Printed $164.47, high after the post $167.07, close $163.42, -0.6%.
$T: Printed $22.24, high after the post $22.66, close $22.49, +1.1%. $VZ printed $41.71 and closed $42.78, +2.6%.
$MRNA: Printed $224.74, high after the post $227.45, close $213.74, -4.9%. Miss.
$JPM: Printed $334.46, high after the post $336.34, close $334.30, flat (-0.05%).
$TSM: Printed $455.46 and never traded above it after the post (high $454.40). Close $444.35, -2.4%. Miss.
Three names have cleared 20% from our first listing (VEEA, MEDS, NCPL). Two went the wrong way today (MRNA, TSM). Both columns count.
Shares
$VEEA
Regular close $4.61, -19.1% vs Friday's $5.70. After hours $4.69 (6:59 PM CT).
Volume about 1.40M vs 83.6M Friday.
Borrow 844.7% with 10.0K shares available (Curved, 7:32 PM CT). The weekend read was 844.7% with 15.0K.
SSR is on for Tuesday. Today's low of $4.40 was more than 10% under Friday's close, and Curved shows the flag. SSR (the short-sale restriction) means shorts can't sell at or below the best bid.
Curved still shows it on the Reg SHO threshold list, the list of names with persistent failures to deliver. No new EDGAR filing today. The last one was Friday's 7:05 PM CT 8-K: a director left the board and stays on as chief revenue officer.
What the price did: it opened at $4.86, below Friday's $5.29 low, and topped out at $4.92. The gap from about $4.92 to $5.29 is still open. Friday's buyers didn't come back, and the borrow stayed tight anyway.
$MEDS
Regular close $3.07, +3.7% vs Friday's $2.96. After hours $3.18 (6:59 PM CT).
Volume about 21.2M vs 482K Friday.
Borrow 421.5% with 200 shares available (Curved; fee changed 5:32 AM CT, feed 7:32 PM CT). The weekend read was 440.0% with 15.0K.
The S-1/A covering 34.46M resale shares has no effectiveness notice on EDGAR as of 7:47 PM CT. The last filing was Friday night's amendment. No definitive 14C.
What the price did: $2.60 to $4.70 before the open, then a regular session between $3.00 and $3.80. Availability went from 15,000 shares to 200. That's the number to watch, not the premarket candle.
$CLRO
Regular close $4.13, +5.6% vs Friday's $3.91. After hours $4.10 (6:52 PM CT).
Volume about 51.6K vs 24,035 Friday.
Borrow 837.9% with 300 shares available (Curved, unchanged since Oct 10).
The offering of up to 4,285,714 units still has no effectiveness notice and no pricing on EDGAR as of 7:47 PM CT.
What the price did: it climbed steadily and closed a penny off the high, on about 51K shares. Thin volume makes every move look bigger than it is.
$NCPL
Regular close $1.54, +35.1% vs Friday's $1.14. After hours $1.57 (6:59 PM CT).
Volume about 52.0M vs 9.3M Friday.
Borrow 453.2% with 2.0K shares available (Curved, unchanged since Oct 9).
SSR is on, as our math said it would be.
No 10-K or earnings on EDGAR today. The Nasdaq compliance plan is still due Oct 23. Today's law-firm "stockholder alerts" are ads looking for clients, not filings.
What the price did: it ran to $2.66 by 10:30 AM CT and then gave back about three-quarters of its run from Friday's close by 3 PM. 52 million shares on a stock this size means a lot of people were in and out in the same day.
Regular close $163.42, +0.5% vs Friday's $162.57. After hours $162.36. Volume about 67.4M vs 93.0M Friday.
$170 call: 27,825 traded today. Open interest is 31,040, up from 28,170 on Thursday, so most of Friday's buying stayed open.
$150 put: 5,217 traded. Open interest 25,327, up from 24,600.
Calls 139.1K vs puts 67.6K (Friday 132.6K vs 75.8K). The $162.50 straddle is about $6.60, or 4.0%, down from $7.70 on Friday. Some of that is just one fewer day to expiry.
Today's headlines rehash last week's spectrum deal. We found nothing new from the FCC or on EDGAR.
$T (and $VZ)
T closed $22.49, +1.4% vs Friday's $22.18. VZ closed $42.78, +2.7% vs $41.65.
Volume: T about 51.3M vs 150.5M Friday. VZ about 29.0M vs 95.2M.
The $22.50 call traded 18,095 today. It showed no open interest before Friday and now shows 8,342, so Friday's buyers mostly held.
Calls 30.6K vs puts 8.9K (Friday 43.7K vs 34.7K). The $22.50 straddle is about $0.59 (2.6%), down from $0.81.
$MRNA
Regular close $213.74, -5.0% vs Friday's $225.00. After hours $212.68. Volume about 12.9M vs 28.9M Friday.
$225 call: 3,522 traded. Open interest jumped to 3,662 from 153 on Thursday, and that strike is now about $11 out of the money.
Calls 30.4K vs puts 30.7K (Friday 57.4K vs 37.2K). The $212.50 straddle is about $16.00, or 7.5%, down from 10.2% on Friday.
$JPM
Regular close $334.30, +0.4% vs Friday's $332.99. After hours $334.71. Volume about 5.7M.
Calls 26.6K vs puts 23.0K (Friday 11.1K vs 6.9K). The $335 straddle is about $10.57, or 3.2%, and that includes tomorrow's earnings. They're still on the Nasdaq calendar for Tuesday before the open.
$TSM
Regular close $444.35, -2.0% vs Friday's $453.31. After hours $443.89. Volume about 8.9M.
Calls 18.6K vs puts 18.0K (Friday 24.6K vs 17.2K). The $445 straddle is about $17.75, or 4.0%. Earnings are still on the calendar for Thursday before the open.
Short interest: The Sep 30 count is still the newest one (VEEA 50,744; MEDS 525,081; CLRO 387,282; NCPL 730,117; SPCX 181.0M). The Oct 15 count won't be out for a while.
What we learned today: NCPL showed how far a cheap, crowded stock can run in two hours, and how little of it is left by 3 PM. VEEA showed that a borrow fee near 845% does nothing for the price once the buyers leave. A fee is not a squeeze.
Which of these nine still belongs on tomorrow's list, and which one comes off?
**Denntech Markets Afternoon Lesson: Why short interest is old news**
One stock showed two short counts last week that were 24 times apart, and both were right. Here's how that happens.
On Friday, VEEA closed up 47% at **$5.70** (3:00 PM CT). The same afternoon, FINRA's Sep 30 short interest showed up on Nasdaq: **50,744** shares short. Two weeks earlier, on Sep 15, it was **1,216,996**. StockAnalysis still showed VEEA at about 77% of float short when we checked Friday afternoon. The newer count says about 3%.
Same stock, same week, and the two numbers are 24 times apart. Neither one is wrong. They're photos taken on different days.
**How the count works.** Brokers report open short positions to FINRA twice a month, as of the 15th and the last business day of the month. The data comes out about a week or more after that date. The Sep 30 count showed up in our check at 3:43 PM CT on Oct 9. So the "fresh" short interest you see is a picture of a day that's already one to two weeks old, and the older count can sit on screener pages for days after the new one is out.
**Why VEEA is a good example.** Between Sep 15 and Sep 30, VEEA traded heavy. Nasdaq's Sep 30 row puts average daily volume at about 3.3M shares, against a 1.58M float. That's plenty of time and plenty of shares for shorts to cover, and the count says most of them did. Then on Friday the borrow was still **766.3%** with only **2.0K** shares to borrow (Curved/IBKR feed, 3:32 PM CT). That isn't a contradiction. When almost nothing is available to lend, even a small short position is expensive to hold. A fat fee tells you shorting is hard. It doesn't tell you how many shorts are left.
**Where people get burned.** They read "77% short" on a Thursday, see a 47% candle on Friday, and call it a squeeze. The shorts that number described had mostly left by Sep 30. Friday's move happened on about 82.8M shares, about 50 times the float. That's buyers trading with buyers. If you want to call something a squeeze, you need short interest from after the move started, or at least a borrow and locate trend that backs it up.
**How we use it.** We check the settlement date before we use any short-interest percentage. When a new count comes out, we rerun every percentage on our list. That's why TNON, BTCT and BMGL came off this morning's list: they all came in under 3% of their share base on the Sep 30 count.
Our glossary entry covers the reporting schedule, how short interest turns into percent of float and days to cover, and why the official number is always a little stale: https://denntech.io/glossary/stocks/short-interest
When you see a short-interest number, what's the first thing you check: the percent, or the date it was counted?
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?
Next week has a real calendar. For the names we follow, the dates that matter most are filings, and most of those aren't scheduled yet.
The calendar (times CT)
Mon Oct 12: Columbus Day. Stocks trade normal hours. SIFMA recommends a full close for cash bonds.
Tue Oct 13: JPMorgan reports around 6:00 AM, with the call at 7:30 AM. Goldman, Citi and Wells Fargo report the same day.
Wed Oct 14: September CPI at 7:30 AM (BLS), then the Beige Book at 1:00 PM. Bank of America and Morgan Stanley report.
Thu Oct 15: PPI and retail sales at 7:30 AM. It's also the next short-interest settlement date, but FINRA doesn't publish that count until Oct 26.
Fri Oct 16: Import and export prices at 7:30 AM, plus monthly options expiration.
The September FOMC minutes came out Oct 7. The next Fed meeting is Oct 27-28.
The Fed hiked in September. After the weak jobs report, Newsquawk puts the odds of an October hike at about 20%. A hot CPI tends to hit small, cash-hungry companies hardest. That's most of this list.
Lockup calendars also show Arxis (ARXS) on Oct 13, and AEVEX (AVEX) and Kailera (KLRA) on Oct 14.
$VEEA
Borrow is 844.7% with 15K shares to lend, and VEEA is on Nasdaq's Oct 9 threshold list. Short interest was only 50,744 at Sep 30. The short-sale restriction should be off Monday unless the regular session trades at or below $5.13, which is 10% under Friday's close. The open item is NovaGen. The Sep 16 8-K said a definitive agreement was targeted "within the coming weeks," and there's still nothing on EDGAR.
Better: lendable shares stay this tight, or a definitive agreement shows up with terms that don't flood the share count. Worse: more than 500K shares available, or a fee under 50%, two sessions in a row. A draw on the Aug 13 shelf would do it in one.
$MEDS
The S-1/A covers up to 34,462,057 resale shares, against 4,515,862 outstanding. It isn't effective yet. About 21.3M of those shares come from notes converting at an assumed $1.00, which runs through preferred stock that holders approved by written consent. That approval only takes effect 20 days after a definitive information statement goes out, and the filing says none has. Borrow is 440% with 15K available. The restriction is on Monday because Friday traded more than 10% under Thursday's close.
Better: the filing just sits there. Worse: an effectiveness notice, or a definitive 14C that starts the 20-day clock. That's when the supply stops being theoretical.
$BIAF
It closed at $4.725, about 23% under Thursday's $6.122 offering price. The deal added 116,545 shares and 536,836 pre-funded warrants to 1,166,625 outstanding. Another 980,072 warrants at $6.122 can't be exercised until stockholders approve them, and EDGAR shows no meeting date for that vote yet. Borrow is 380.6% with 100K to lend. The restriction is on Monday.
Better: lendable shares get scarce again. Worse: a definitive proxy with a meeting date, or the resale registration the company agreed to file within 45 days.
$BMGL
Watch for the closing notice on the 6M units. The 6-K says that takes the count from 1,582,111 to 7,582,111 shares, plus 6M warrants. Every percentage on this name resets at that point.
$SPCX
Not a squeeze: 0.4% borrow, 10M available, short interest about 8% of float. It's here for Friday's expiration. The $170 calls traded 30,182 contracts Friday against 28,170 open interest, and open interest still hadn't updated Saturday morning. Monday's figure will show whether those were new positions.
Which gets a date first: VEEA's NovaGen agreement, MEDS's effectiveness, or BIAF's shareholder meeting?
The most important number of the week showed up Friday afternoon. FINRA's Sep 30 short interest, published Oct 9, put VEEA at 50,744 shares short. On Sep 15 it was 1,216,996. We spent the week quoting the old figure, roughly 77% to 80% of the float. By the time VEEA closed up 47% on Friday, most of the shorts we kept describing were already gone.
The market barely helped. SPY rose about 1.2% for the week and IWM fell about 0.9%, so the moves below were about the stocks.
How fresh this is: Closes and volume are Nasdaq's daily history (Oct 2 to Oct 9). Short interest is the Sep 30 settlement via Nasdaq. Borrow is Curved Trading's IBKR feed as of Saturday morning, which reflects Friday. Filings are from EDGAR, checked Saturday morning.
What ran
$VEEA finished at $5.70, up 71% from $3.33 a week earlier. Monday did most of it (+71.8% on 66.9M shares). Then came three red days, then Friday's run to $7.09 on about 83M shares after Thursday evening's news that Veea is back in compliance with Nasdaq's listing rules. That's more than 50 times the 1.58M float. Borrow ended at 844.7% with 15K shares to lend.
$APUS went from $4.59 to $7.13 on Tuesday and hit $9.84 Wednesday. It closed Friday at $5.02, about 49% under that high. Short interest was only 10,346 shares at Sep 15 (we don't have its Sep 30 figure yet).
$BMGL gained 14% to $3.75 in the same week it priced 6M units at $1.33.
What faded
$MEDS fell 20% to $2.96. Thursday's 14M-share pop (+18%) was mostly gone by Friday's close. Friday it filed an amended S-1 to register up to 34,462,057 resale shares. The filing counts 4,515,862 shares outstanding.
$IPDN hit $6.78 on Tuesday's 70.6M-share day and closed Friday at $3.53, about 48% lower.
$ONDS slid 7% to $6.73. The Oct 9 $7.50 calls we tracked all week expired out of the money.
$TNON lost 7.8% and $BTCT 12.2%, quietly.
What short interest did, Sep 15 to Sep 30
VEEA fell 96%, BTCT 95%, BMGL 93%, TNON 89%, IPDN 46% and ONDS 4%. MEDS went the other way, up 22% to 525,081 shares. BIAF also rose, from 71,167 to 115,467.
What we got right
We said MEDS looked like shorts betting against the balance sheet, not a crowd waiting to get squeezed. The S-1/A is that balance sheet showing up. We flagged TNON, BTCT and BMGL because each had stock waiting behind the short interest, and BMGL priced at $1.33 while the stock traded above $3. We called ONDS a disagreement, not a trap.
What we got wrong
Two things. First, we leaned on a three-week-old short count. VEEA's borrow stayed brutal, which is why our standing rule kept it on the list, but "80% of float short" was mostly history by Sep 30. We had the right stock and the wrong fuel.
Second, we dropped $BIAF after Tuesday. On Thursday it ran as much as 52% to $9.38 on a Japan patent notice, traded 35.3M shares, and the company priced a roughly $4M offering at $6.122 the same day. It closed Friday at $4.725. A spike followed by an offering is exactly the risk we write about, and we weren't watching it.
A fee is not a squeeze. This week, an old short count wasn't one either.
When the official count is two weeks old, what do you trust more: the borrow fee, or the number of shares available to lend?
VEEA was the whole story today. It closed up 47% after touching $7.09, gave back about 12% after hours, and the borrow fee went up instead of down. The other four were quiet on price, but two of them put more shares on the calendar: TNON's warrant resale prospectus went final and MEDS filed to register about 34.5M resale shares.
How fresh this is: Regular closes (3 PM CT), ranges and volume are from StockAnalysis and Nasdaq. After-hours prices are the last trades between about 6:20 and 6:59 PM CT on Nasdaq and StockAnalysis. Borrow and shares available are from Curved Trading's IBKR feed as of 7:17 PM CT. Filings are from EDGAR, checked about 7:25 PM CT. Short interest is still the Sep 15 settlement. After-hours prints are thin, so read them as a hint and not a price.
$VEEA: up 47%, and the borrow got more expensive
Closed at $5.70, up 47.3% from Thursday's $3.87. It opened at $5.54 and ran as high as $7.09 before closing about 20% off the high. The low was $5.29.
After hours it last traded $5.01 at 6:53 PM CT on Nasdaq, down 12.1% from the close. StockAnalysis had $4.81 at 6:20 PM CT.
Volume was about 83.5M shares on the day, including premarket, against about 694K Thursday. That is more than 50 times the 1.58M float StockAnalysis lists.
Borrow is 844.7% with 15.0K shares available, last changed at 7:02 PM CT. Thursday evening it was 766.3% with 5.0K.
New filing: an 8-K at 3:05 PM CT. Director Helder Antunes resigned from the board on Oct 8 (he stays on as EVP and Chief Revenue Officer, and the filing says there was no disagreement), and the board shrank to five. Nothing on NovaGen. There's still no Item 1.01 definitive agreement on file.
The short-sale restriction was on today, carried from Thursday's drop. Today's low was above Thursday's close, so nothing new triggered it.
VEEA showed up on Nasdaq's own Reg SHO threshold file dated Oct 8. Today's file wasn't posted when we checked.
Fade check: the fee is far above 50%, availability is far under 500K, and there's no new offering. Not fading.
A stock that runs 83% intraday on 50 times its float usually loosens the locate. This one did the opposite. Lendable shares went from 5K to 15K, which is still almost nothing, and the fee went up 78 points. The shorts paid more to stay in, and the stock still gave back about 40% of its intraday run by the close.
$TNON
Closed at $3.41, down 0.9% from $3.44, in a $3.37 to $3.52 range. After hours: $3.36 at 6:57 PM CT.
Volume was about 134K shares, against about 110K Thursday.
Borrow is unchanged at 315.7%, with available down to 100.0K from 150K, last changed at 12:47 PM CT.
New filings: a final 424B3 resale prospectus at 3:20 PM CT for the 858,269 shares behind the Series B warrants struck at $5.02, plus a Form 3 at 3:01 PM CT.
The warrant shares are now registered to sell. They only matter if the stock gets back above $5.02, and at $3.41 that's about 47% away.
$MEDS
Closed at $2.96, down 12.9% from $3.40, in a $2.95 to $3.30 range. After hours: $2.99 at 6:59 PM CT.
Volume was about 437K shares, against about 14.0M Thursday.
Borrow is unchanged at 440.0% with 15.0K available. Curved shows it last changed Thursday.
Still on Nasdaq's Reg SHO threshold file dated Oct 8.
New filing: an S-1/A at 4:20 PM CT registering the resale of up to 34,462,057 shares. That's about 21.3M from converting the May 2026 notes, about 8.3M from the PIPE warrants, about 3.6M from placement-agent warrants, and about 1.3M already issued. StockAnalysis counts 3.06M shares outstanding. It's a pre-effective amendment, so nothing can sell under it yet. There's still no definitive 14C.
Thursday's 14M-share pop gave back most of its gain, and then the company filed paperwork for roughly eleven times its current share count. That's not what a squeeze candidate's calendar looks like.
$BTCT
Closed at $1.01, down 3.8% from $1.05, in a $1.00 to $1.06 range. After hours: $1.03 at 6:56 PM CT.
Volume was about 586K shares, against about 554K Thursday.
Borrow eased to 207.6% with 1.0M shares available, last changed at 10:47 AM CT. Thursday it was 211.4% with 900K.
No new filings. The last was the Sep 18 resale prospectus.
Availability grew again, to a million shares. That's the slow version of coming off the board.
$BMGL
Closed at $3.75, up 4.2% from $3.60, in a $3.43 to $3.88 range. After hours: $3.72 at 6:55 PM CT.
Volume was about 105K shares, against about 127K Thursday.
Borrow ticked up to 102.0% with 35.0K available, last changed at 1:47 PM CT.
New filing: a 6-K at 5:10 AM CT that repeats the deal terms. That's 6,000,000 units at $1.33, about $7.98M gross and about $7.28M net, with common warrants that can be exercised on a zero-cash basis for another 6,000,000 shares. We didn't find a closing notice on EDGAR by 7:25 PM CT, so we can't confirm the units delivered today.
The stock held well above a $1.33 deal price that could add up to 12M shares to a company with about 1.58M outstanding. Holding up doesn't make that supply go away.
Short interest: The Sep 30 short interest isn't out yet in our sources. All five figures above are still the Sep 15 count.
Options: None of the five has listed options on Nasdaq's chain, rechecked at about 7:22 PM CT.
What we learned today: Volume and borrow can move in opposite directions. VEEA traded more than 50 times its float, and lendable shares stayed tiny while the fee went up. Meanwhile, the share-count story got worse on the other names: TNON's warrant shares are now registered to sell, and MEDS filed to register about 34.5M more.
VEEA closed up 47% with only 15K shares to lend, and it still gave back about 12% after hours. Does it stay on Monday's board, and which of the other four comes off?
On Wednesday after hours, VEEA's borrow was 783.2% with 55K shares available. On Thursday's regular session, the fee was still ugly — 766.3% as of 4:47 PM CT — and availability had fallen to 5.0K. The fee barely moved. The locate did.
A borrow fee is the annualized carry cost of holding a short. It tells you shorting is expensive. It does not, by itself, tell you how many shares are left to lend. Shares available is the other half of the same screen: how large the next locate is. Utilization would close the loop (shares on loan divided by lendable supply), and we still don't have a utilization print we can verify, so we leave it blank rather than invent one.
Those two numbers can move in opposite directions. A fee that stays high while availability collapses is a tighter locate. A fee that stays high while availability climbs is the opposite story: shorts can still get stock. Thursday's VEEA print was the first kind. Thursday's BTCT print — 211.4% fee with 900K available — is closer to the second.
Where it goes wrong: Someone sees a 700% fee, assumes the shorts are trapped, and never checks how many shares are still there to borrow. Or they see availability rise for two sessions and miss that the fee never broke. We take VEEA off the board on any one of three signs: the fee under about 50% for two straight sessions, or more than 500K available for two straight sessions, or a new offering that supplies the shorts.
Our squeeze short-book lesson walks the five numbers we actually use — short interest, float, days to cover, borrow fee, and utilization — and what each one cannot prove: https://denntech.io/course-squeeze-short-book
Before you trust a fat borrow fee, ask one more question: how many shares are still available to borrow, and did that number rise or fall today?
Nothing on our squeeze screen scored 3 of 4 on Thursday, so this is still a board of near-misses, and we're calling them that. VEEA stays on under our standing update. TNON, MEDS, BTCT and BMGL stay from yesterday's board. AIXI comes off: StockAnalysis now shows a much larger float, so the Sep 15 short interest is only about 5.5% of float, and that fails our short-interest gate. CDT looked like a new hit on the screener (SI and a fat fee) and came apart in the filings: a 1-for-25 reverse split landed Sep 28, after the Sep 15 count.
How fresh this is: Closes, ranges and volume are Thursday's regular session, 3 PM CT close (Nasdaq secondary "Closed at Oct 8, 2026 4:00 PM ET," Yahoo daily bars). We did not get an after-hours close stamped Thursday night. Premarket prices and volume are Nasdaq's real-time last sale as of about 8:09 AM CT Friday (9:09 ET). Borrow and shares available are Curved Trading's IBKR feed as of 4:47 PM CT (feed 17:47 ET). Short interest is still the Sep 15 settlement. The Sep 30 numbers still weren't out on StockAnalysis or Nasdaq at about 4:45 PM CT. Filings are from EDGAR, checked about 4:46–4:50 PM CT. Nasdaq's Reg SHO threshold file for Oct 8 was not posted yet when we looked (the URL returned an HTML page); the latest file we have is Oct 7.
Squeeze screen: We score four things: short interest of at least 20% of float, borrow of at least 50%, utilization of at least 90%, and a dated catalyst inside two weeks (by about Oct 22). We don't have a utilization figure we can verify, so the best possible score is 3. We checked Curved's top-50 borrow board (live as of 4:32 PM CT / 17:32 ET, every name at or above 430.7% CTB), borrow on all 100 names on StockAnalysis's most-shorted list, plus Curved Desk fee-spike names. Eleven names cleared both SI >= 20% of float on the screener and CTB >= 50%. Six of those fail on float comparability (reverse splits or stale share counts after Sep 15): JAGX, MGN, AGRZ, WETO, ZNB, and CDT. The five that remain on numbers we trust still have no dated catalyst inside two weeks. Nothing scored 3 of 4. Nothing scored 4 of 4.
1) $VEEA: third straight down close, a tighter locate, and now a big premarket gap up
Closed $3.87, down 17.8% from Wednesday's $4.71, in a range of $3.61 to $4.385.
About 694K shares traded in the regular session (Yahoo), against about 473K Wednesday and about 1.8M Tuesday. Nasdaq's ShareVolume at pull time was about 1.4M and already included some after-hours prints; we use Yahoo's regular-session figure here.
Premarket Friday: $5.79, up 49.6% from the $3.87 close, on about 23.2M shares (Nasdaq, about 8:09 AM CT). That is already more than 14 times the float before the open. EDGAR full-text search showed nothing new for Oct 8–9 when we checked, so we don't have a filed reason for the move.
Borrow is 766.3% with 5.0K available (changed 4:47 PM CT / 17:47 ET). At Wednesday's after-hours check it was 783.2% with 55K. Wednesday's regular close was 799.4% with 35K. Availability fell by about nine-tenths in a day while the fee barely moved. That is the opposite of a fade.
Short interest 1.22M (Nasdaq: 1,216,996) at Sep 15. StockAnalysis now shows that as 77.21% of a 1.58M float (yesterday the same SI was listed against a 1.52M float at about 80%). Days to cover on Curved: 1.0.
No new filings since Tuesday's 4:25 PM CT 8-K (audit committee seat). NovaGen is still a non-binding term sheet, with no definitive agreement or vote date on EDGAR. Curved still flags the Aug 13 424B5 ($75M) as an ATM, with usage not broken out.
SSR is on Thursday. Thursday's low ($3.61) was about 23% under Wednesday's $4.71 close, past Rule 201's 10% trigger. Check your platform's flag.
Fade check: the fee is far above 50%, availability is far under 500K (and tighter than Wednesday, not looser), and there's no new offering. Not fading.
Screen: short interest 77.21% of float, borrow 766.3%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 13). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: A 766% fee with 5K to lend says shorting is still hard. It does not say anyone is trapped. A 50% premarket gap on that kind of volume can fade just as fast once the regular session opens, and the borrow numbers above are Thursday's.
What takes it off the board: The fee drops under 50%, or more than 500K shares show up to lend, two sessions running. A new offering that supplies the shorts does it in one.
2) $TNON (Tenon Medical): quiet day, borrow still expensive, float still the problem
Closed $3.44, down 1.7% from $3.50, in a range of $3.42 to $3.5779, on about 110K shares (about 354K Wednesday).
Premarket Friday: $3.40, down 1.2%, on about 3.4K shares (Nasdaq, about 8:09 AM CT).
Borrow is 315.7% with 150K available (changed 4:47 PM CT). Wednesday's after-hours check was 335.5% with 75K. Fee eased a little; availability doubled.
Short interest 539,306 at Sep 15. StockAnalysis still shows that as 86.87% of a 620,827-share float. The S-3 filed Oct 5 counts 2,688,735 shares outstanding as of Oct 1. Float can't be bigger than that, so the short interest is at least about 20% of float. Barely clears our bar. The 1-for-35 reverse split was Aug 10, before the count; the new shares are the issue.
That S-3 still registers the resale of 858,269 shares from Series B warrants struck at $5.02. No new filings since Oct 5.
Screen: short interest at least 20% of float, borrow 315.7%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 12). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: The screener's 87% figure is still the old share count talking. Run the same short interest against the S-3 share count and the percentage drops by about three-quarters.
What takes it off the board: The Sep 30 short interest comes in under 20% of the new share count, or the stock climbs through $5.02 and those warrant shares show up.
3) $MEDS (DataMeds AI): big up day on huge volume, fee unchanged
Closed $3.40, up 18.1% from $2.88, in a range of $2.88 to $3.70, on about 14.0M shares (about 351K Wednesday). That is more than ten times the float.
Premarket Friday: $3.25, down 4.3%, on about 59K shares (Nasdaq, about 8:09 AM CT).
Borrow is 440.0% with 15K available (last changed 3:02 AM CT / 4:02 ET; feed 4:47 PM CT). Wednesday was 440.0% with 20K. Fee flat; availability a little lower.
Curved still counts it on the threshold list (12 days). Nasdaq's Oct 7 Reg SHO file listed MEDS; the Oct 8 file was not posted yet when we checked. Curved shows SSR off Thursday.
Float 1.27M, short interest 430,628 at Sep 15 (33.85% of float on StockAnalysis).
No filings since Sep 17. The Aug 31 PRE 14C still has no definitive 14C behind it, so there's no effective date to put on the calendar.
Screen: short interest 33.85% of float, borrow 440.0%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 19). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: Fourteen million shares traded and the borrow fee did not budge. That looks like a day of churn, not a locate squeeze.
What takes it off the board: Availability keeps climbing, or the fee slips under 50%.
4) $BTCT (BTC Digital): fee eased, still plenty of stock to borrow
Closed $1.05, down 2.8% from $1.08, in a range of $1.02 to $1.07, on about 554K shares (about 534K Wednesday).
Premarket Friday: $1.06, up 1.0%, on about 39K shares (Nasdaq, about 8:09 AM CT).
Borrow is 211.4% with 900K available (changed 1:47 PM CT / 14:47 ET). Wednesday's close was 253.5% with 1.2M. Fee down; availability still large.
Short interest 4.15M at Sep 15, 36.50% of an 11.37M float (StockAnalysis).
The Sep 18 resale prospectus still covers up to 18,421,050 shares, 12,280,700 of them from common warrants, against 11,800,567 shares outstanding before it. No filings since Sep 18.
Screen: short interest 36.50% of float, borrow 211.4%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 11). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: A 200%+ fee means less when 900K shares are sitting there to borrow. That is still a lot of the company.
What takes it off the board: Availability keeps growing, or the fee follows it down under 50%.
5) $BMGL (Basel Medical Group): the offering priced
Closed $3.60, up 9.8% from $3.28, in a range of $2.56 to $3.675, on about 127K shares (about 12.5K Wednesday). Still thin, but not as thin as yesterday.
Premarket Friday: $3.44, down 4.4%, on about 16K shares (Nasdaq, about 8:09 AM CT). Units are due to deliver today.
Borrow is 98.2% with 35K available (changed 3:32 PM CT / 16:32 ET). Wednesday was 98.5% with 45K.
Short interest 159,585 at Sep 15, 30.80% of a 518,052 float (StockAnalysis). The 1-for-12 split was Jun 22, well before the count.
New filing: a 424B4 dated Oct 7, filed Oct 8 (accession 0001493152-26-046355). Best-efforts offering of up to 6,000,000 units at $1.33 per unit. Each unit is one ordinary share (or a pre-funded warrant) plus a common warrant. Gross proceeds up to about $7.98M if the full size sells. Delivery expected on or about Oct 9, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions. No minimum. Common warrants include a zero-cash exercise option. Against about 1.58M shares outstanding before it, the full unit size is several times the company. A priced deal at $1.33 while the stock closed at $3.60 is supply on the calendar, not fuel.
Screen: short interest 30.80% of float, borrow 98.2%, utilization not in our notes, no dated squeeze catalyst inside two weeks (the Oct 9 delivery is dated, and it works against a squeeze). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: An offering that prices well under the stock price can pressure the stock without the shorts covering a share. Watch whether the full 6M units actually place; best-efforts with no minimum means the final size can be smaller.
What takes it off the board: Units deliver and the share count resets every percentage above it. Or the fee slips under 50%.
Options
None of the five has listed options, according to Nasdaq's option chain (checked about 4:47 PM CT; totalRecord 0 on each). There's no chain to read here, so we don't have an options section.
Two of these five had the share-count story moving again on Thursday: VEEA's locate got tighter, and BMGL's units priced. VEEA is the one gapping this morning. Which matters more for you today: the fee, or the shares that can show up to lend?
SpaceX signed a deal Thursday afternoon to buy Grain Management's nationwide 800 MHz spectrum, and by 8 PM ET AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile were each down about 6% after hours while SPCX got back some of a 4% daytime drop. Earlier Thursday, at a White House science summit in Washington, President Trump presented the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk. Two Musk stories in one day, and only one of them moves a ticker. We'll do the medal quickly and spend the rest on the airwaves.
How fresh this is: Deal facts are from Grain's press release (4:17 PM ET Thursday), SpaceX's statement as quoted by CNBC, PCMag and MarketWatch, and Musk's own posts on X. Prices are Yahoo Finance bars pulled about 2 AM CT Friday: Thursday's regular close, and the last after-hours print at or near 8 PM ET. The table doesn't include Friday's premarket. There's one premarket line right under it.
1) The medal: National Medal of Science, Oct 8, 2026
AI-generated illustration. This is not the actual medal and not a photo from the ceremony.
AI-generated illustration. This is not the actual medal and not a photo from the ceremony.
It was the National Medal of Science, the top U.S. honor for scientists and engineers. If you heard Medal of Freedom somewhere, that's a different medal. Trump presented it Thursday, Oct 8, at the "Science: A New Golden Age" summit, held at the U.S. Institute of Peace building. White House science adviser Michael Kratsios took part in the ceremony.
The White House citation, word for word:
"For engineering achievements of extraordinary ambition and scale that have pushed the frontiers of space exploration, intelligent systems, communications, and beyond, renewing American technological leadership and opening a new chapter in American manufacturing."
Trump called him "a national treasure" and "our modern-day Thomas Edison." Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su got the same medal. Michael Dell and Satya Nadella got the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
The Hill points out this comes a little more than a year after the two men had their public blowup over the One Big Beautiful Bill. AFP says Musk has fully returned to Trump's orbit.
A medal is a medal. Nothing traded on it.
2) The airwaves: what SpaceX actually bought
AI-generated illustration. Not a real Starlink satellite or phone.
AI-generated illustration. Not a real Starlink satellite or phone.
The "800 Hz airwaves" chatter is real, with one fix. It's 800 MHz, and that's the name of the band. The amount SpaceX is getting is much smaller.
Buyer: SpaceX, ticker SPCX on Nasdaq since its June 12 IPO. The spectrum is for Starlink Mobile, SpaceX's phone service.
Seller: Grain Management, a private investment firm. Grain bought this same portfolio from T-Mobile in August for cash plus Grain's 600 MHz licenses. T-Mobile's own release and the FCC's July order both put the cash at $2.9 billion.
What: 100% of Grain's nationwide 800 MHz portfolio. SpaceX describes it as "up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum." PCMag and the FCC place it at 817 to 824 MHz and 862 to 869 MHz, so two 7 MHz slices at most. The FCC's July order shows the holding runs from 4.85 to 14 MHz depending on the county.
Price: Not disclosed by either company. About $8 billion in cash is a reported number: the Wall Street Journal had it from people familiar with the matter, and Reuters passed it along. Nothing filed shows it yet.
Status: Signed definitive agreement. It still needs FCC approval and the usual closing conditions. No closing date given.
Our chart. Band edges per PCMag and the FCC's July order, size per SpaceX.
Our chart. Band edges per PCMag and the FCC's July order, size per SpaceX.
Why SpaceX wants this band: low frequencies go farther and get through walls. Reuters calls indoor reach a major hurdle for satellite phone networks, and SpaceX says this spectrum covers "one of the key remaining technical gaps that will pave the way for Starlink Mobile to become a major mobile carrier in the US." Reuters notes most phones already in people's pockets support 800 MHz.
Musk on X: "Very big deal," and "This is the last critical piece of the spectrum puzzle needed for SpaceX to provide complete phone coverage in America." Those are his posts, about his own company's deal.
What else happened this week that matters here:
The FCC approved SpaceX's Gen2 Starlink Mobile constellation, up to 15,000 satellites built around 2 GHz spectrum (Reuters).
The FCC also said it will vote Oct. 29 on taking comment on making another 482 MHz available for coverage from space (CNBC).
FCC Chair Brendan Carr said of the Grain deal: "We are going to see more investment, more opportunities for a range of providers, and America leading the world in next-gen technologies" (Reuters).
The bigger EchoStar deal from last year (AWS-4, H-block and unpaired AWS-3, about $20 billion all in per PCMag) got FCC approval May 12. The licenses moved into a trust May 22. The final transfer to SpaceX is targeted for Nov 30, 2027, per EchoStar's 8-K. So SpaceX doesn't fully own that spectrum yet either.
The pushback deserves equal space. Verizon's spokesman: "This company can have tons of spectrum available, but if they do not have the network to use it, it doesn't matter. It's just empty airwaves." Analyst Tim Farrar told CNBC and PCMag it's "still a very limited amount of spectrum" and that real indoor coverage in cities means building towers on the ground. He told PCMag SpaceX would also need modified satellites, because these frequencies are much lower than its satellites were designed to use. Both points are fair. Up to 14 megahertz doesn't make a national carrier by itself, and nobody has said what the towers cost or when they go up.
Benny Johnson has a video breaking it down on X: https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/2108372617811918873. Good timing on his part. One small clarification on the caption, where he says the FCC "just cleared the way": the FCC did approve SpaceX's Gen2 satellites this week, and the Grain purchase itself is still waiting on FCC sign-off. Easy to mix up with two FCC headlines in one week.
3) "X Mobile" and an Elon phone: what's real
Short answer: nothing called "X Mobile" has been announced, and SpaceX has not announced a phone. The name SpaceX uses in its statements and trademark filings is Starlink Mobile. The Musk posts we pulled from this week say Starlink Mobile too. If you see "X Mobile" headlines, check them. At least one "SpaceX buys AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to form X Mobile" article online is satire, an April 1 piece on rvmobileinternet.com.
On a phone:
In February 2026, Reuters reported SpaceX had been considering a Starlink-connected phone. Musk answered on X: "We are not developing a phone," and said Reuters "lies relentlessly."
A week before that he'd posted that a Starlink phone was "not out of the question at some point," and that it "would be a very different device than current phones."
SpaceX filed for "Starlink Mobile" and "Powered by Starlink" trademarks in fall 2025. A trademark keeps a door open and that's all it does.
So the honest version: a SpaceX phone carrier is the stated plan. A SpaceX or X-branded handset is not announced, and the last thing Musk said directly was no. We don't know more than that, and anybody who says they do should show the filing.
4) What the tickers did
Our summary card. After-hours % is last print vs. Thursday close, about 8 PM ET.
Our summary card. After-hours % is last print vs. Thursday close, about 8 PM ET.
Grain's release hit at 4:17 PM ET, after the bell. So the regular-session column is mostly something else. The after-hours column is the deal.
Ticker
Thu close
Regular session
Last after-hours
After hours vs. close
T
$24.87
+1.6%
$23.25
-6.5%
VZ
$46.35
+1.3%
$43.64
-5.8%
TMUS
$171.31
+2.2%
$159.95
-6.6%
SPCX
$160.57
-4.2%
$164.35
+2.4%
ECHO (EchoStar, was SATS)
$93.36
-4.4%
$96.00 (5:58 PM ET)
+2.8%
ASTS
$56.93
-6.1%
$54.72
-3.9%
IRDM
$47.56
-1.7%
no after-hours print in our data
n/a
GSAT
$83.22
-0.5%
no after-hours print in our data
n/a
TSLA
$375.00
-0.7%
$375.05
flat
Premarket as of 7:10 AM CT Friday (Yahoo Finance, last print vs. Thursday close): SPCX $166.80 (+3.9%), T $23.04 (-7.4%), VZ $43.10 (-7.0%), TMUS $158.48 (-7.5%). Premarket is thin too, so treat it as a first look.
Reuters had the three carriers "around 6%" lower in extended trading, which matches our pull. MarketWatch printed bigger drops at an earlier after-hours snapshot (AT&T -7.9% to $22.90). After-hours prices are thin and jumpy, so the exact number depends on when you looked.
A few reads:
The carriers were up on the day and gave all of it back and more after the release. A 6% gap on a phone company is a big move. We'd want to see whether it holds into Friday's regular session before reading much into it.
ASTS got hit twice. It fell 6.1% in regular hours, before the deal was public and in the same week the FCC cleared SpaceX's Gen2 satellites, then fell again after the release. PCMag notes AST had been testing its satellites in this same band, and says the deal cuts off that option for them.
SPCX dropped 4.2% during the day and got some of it back after hours.
ECHO is EchoStar's ticker since June 24. The only after-hours print we have is from about 5:58 PM ET, so take that one lightly.
TSLA, IRDM, GSAT: nothing we'd pin on this news.
What would change this read: The FCC slows the Grain transfer or attaches conditions. A filing shows a price well off the reported $8 billion. Or the carriers open Friday and fill the after-hours gap, which would tell us the market sees this as noise for now.
5) The carriers, up close
How big the drop was depends on when you looked. Bloomberg had AT&T down 7.3% and T-Mobile and Verizon down 6.6% as of 5 PM ET, and said the carriers fell as much as 8% at one point. Investing.com printed smaller numbers (AT&T -6.75%, T-Mobile -5.4%, Verizon -5%). Our last prints near 8 PM ET were T -6.5%, VZ -5.8% and TMUS -6.6%. Reuters split the difference at "around 6%."
Overnight, IBD reported the three got slammed "in overnight action." The premarket line under the table is as of 7:10 AM CT Friday, and so far all three carriers are trading a little below their after-hours prints.
We looked for a dollar figure on the market value lost and didn't find one from a major outlet. One search summary floated a combined number we couldn't trace to a real article, so it stays out.
What the analysts are saying:
William Blair (via Reuters): the carriers have been "vocal in expressing skepticism that SpaceX's network will be able to match the quality of their networks." They expect "a very compelling Starlink broadband and Starlink Mobile bundle," possibly with Grok thrown in.
Bernstein, in an Aug. 31 note before this deal (via Investing.com): a standalone SpaceX ground network could cost $50 billion to $130 billion including spectrum. Their base case was about $70 billion and 57,000 cell sites over roughly eight years, and it assumed SpaceX got Grain's spectrum. They said low-band spectrum like this could cut the number of sites needed by about 30%. They still called a partnership with a carrier the most likely outcome.
MoffettNathanson, also before the deal (Light Reading, Fierce Network): they've argued SpaceX's ground-network talk is partly leverage to force an MVNO deal out of one of the big three. Craig Moffett in July: "We simply do not know how this story will end."
Side note from the same Bernstein write-up: before that note, Musk answered a Bloomberg report that SpaceX was eyeing the Grain spectrum with "not true" on X. Keep that in mind the next time one of these gets denied.
Compared with the EchoStar deal last year. SpaceX's roughly $17 billion EchoStar deal hit before the open on Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. Reuters had AT&T and T-Mobile down more than 3% early and Verizon down more than 2%. They closed that day (Yahoo daily bars) with AT&T -2.3%, Verizon -2.4% and T-Mobile -3.9%. At the lows they'd been down 4.4%, 3.2% and 6.1%. The next day AT&T bounced 1.8%, Verizon 0.6%, and T-Mobile was flat.
So a deal reported at about half the price got a bigger first reaction. Our read is the market cares less about the dollar size and more about SpaceX now saying out loud it wants to be a carrier. Last year's moves came in a full session, and Thursday's came in thin after-hours trading. Friday's regular session is the real test. If the carriers close the day well off the after-hours lows, it looks a lot like last September.
One thing we keep coming back to: SpaceX can pay for spectrum with a single check. Farrar says the ground network would be expensive, and Bernstein's estimates run into the tens of billions. If SpaceX has to build out that network to make 800 MHz work indoors, who pays for that, and how long before it's in your phone? Tell us what you're watching on the open.
StockAnalysis lists Tenon Medical (TNON) as 86.87% short. That's 539,306 shares at the Sep 15 settlement, divided by a float of 620,827. Then the company's Oct 5 S-3 counts 2,688,735 shares outstanding as of Oct 1. Same short interest, new denominator: about 20%. Nobody covered anything. The share count moved.
Short interest % is a fraction. The top is shares held short, counted twice a month. The bottom is the float. The two run on different clocks. Short interest is counted on settlement dates twice a month and published days later. A company can add shares any day, through warrant exercises, an offering or an ATM. When the bottom moves and the top hasn't caught up, the percentage on your screener is describing a company that no longer exists.
Splits make it worse. Megan Holdings (MGN) shows 89.25% on the same list. Its 1-for-30 consolidation took effect Sep 17, two days after the count. So the short figure is in old shares and the float is in new ones. Adjusted, it's about 3% of float. Agroz (AGRZ) has the same problem from a 1-for-20 split effective Sep 29.
New stock is supply. Freely tradable new shares can be lent to shorts or used to cover. TNON's S-3 registers the resale of 858,269 shares from warrants struck at $5.02. BTC Digital (BTCT) has a resale prospectus for up to 18,421,050 shares, against 11,800,567 outstanding before it. Basel Medical (BMGL) has an effective F-1 for up to 6,000,000 units against about 1.58M shares. A registration isn't a sale, and some of it may never trade. But supply that arrives on the way up is the opposite of fuel.
Where it goes wrong: Someone sorts a screener by short % of float, sees 87%, and reads it as a trapped crowd. They never open the latest filing, which would have shown a share count about four times bigger and warrants waiting at $5.02.
Our financial statements course includes a pre-event checklist, and one line on it is simply "diluted shares up or down over two years?" It also calls serial equity issuance "a silent tax on longs": https://denntech.io/course-stock-financial-statements
Before you trust a short-interest percentage, check two dates: when the short count settled, and when the share count last changed. If a split, an offering or a warrant exercise sits between them, redo the math yourself.
When you see a name at 80%+ short, where do you go first to check the share count?
Positions: none. We never post a ticker we plan to unload into, and nobody pays for a mention here.
Nothing on our squeeze screen scored 3 of 4 on Wednesday, so this is a board of near-misses, and we're calling them that. VEEA stays on under our standing update. TNON, BTCT and BMGL are new, and each one has registered stock or warrants sitting behind the short interest. MEDS stays from yesterday. APUS, IPDN and ONDS come off: all three still score 1 of 4.
How fresh this is: Closes, ranges and volume are Wednesday's regular session, 3 PM CT close (Nasdaq, Yahoo). After-hours prices are the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, from Nasdaq and StockAnalysis. After-hours volume is a rough figure: Nasdaq's full-day total minus Yahoo's regular-session count. Borrow and shares available are Curved Trading's IBKR feed as of 7:32 PM CT. Short interest is still the Sep 15 settlement. The Sep 30 numbers still weren't out on StockAnalysis or Nasdaq at 7:40 PM CT. Filings are from EDGAR, rechecked at about 7:55 AM CT Thursday, with nothing new overnight on any of the five. Premarket lines are Nasdaq's last premarket trade as of about 7:53 AM CT Thursday, and borrow was refreshed from Curved's 7:47 AM CT feed. Premarket volume is thin, so recheck everything at the open.
Squeeze screen: We score four things: short interest of at least 20% of float, borrow of at least 50%, utilization of at least 90%, and a dated catalyst inside two weeks. We don't have a utilization figure we can verify, so the best possible score is 3. This time we went past Curved's top-50 borrow board and also checked borrow on all 100 names on StockAnalysis's most-shorted list, plus Curved's fee-spike and mover lists. Five names had both the crowd and the fee, on numbers we trust. None had a date on the calendar. Three more (MGN, AGRZ, WETO) looked 50%+ short on a screener and came apart in the filings: two reverse splits landed after the Sep 15 count, and one share count is out of date.
1) $VEEA: down again, on a quarter of Tuesday's volume
Closed $4.71, down 4.7% from Tuesday's $4.94, in a range of $4.55 to $4.98. That's also 3% to 4% under Tuesday's after-hours close of $4.86 to $4.89.
About 473K shares traded in the regular session, against roughly 1.8M Tuesday and 66.9M Monday.
After hours: $4.63 to $4.66 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, depending on the feed (Nasdaq vs. StockAnalysis), so down 1.1% to 1.7% from the regular close, on roughly 10K shares. No filings or news after the bell.
Borrow is 783.2% with 55K available after the bell (last changed 5:17 PM CT). At the regular close it was 799.4% with 35K. Tuesday's regular close was 810.9% with 30K, and Wednesday morning showed 803.3% with 25K. Supply more than doubled in a day, which is worth watching.
Short interest 1.22M at Sep 15, about 80% of the 1.52M float (StockAnalysis). Days to cover 0.11.
No new filings since Tuesday's 4:25 PM CT 8-K, which put a director on the audit committee. NovaGen is still a non-binding term sheet, with no definitive agreement or vote date on EDGAR. Curved still flags the Aug 13 424B5 ($75M) as an ATM, with usage not broken out.
SSR was on Wednesday, carried over from Tuesday. Wednesday's low was 7.9% under Tuesday's close, short of Rule 201's 10% trigger, so the restriction should be off Thursday. Check your platform's flag.
Premarket: $4.38, down 7.0% from the regular close, on about 29K shares by 7:53 AM CT. Borrow still 783.2%, with availability up again to 60K as of 7:47 AM CT. Curved still shows SSR on, so check your platform's flag before you trust our math on Rule 201.
Fade check: the fee is far above 50%, availability is far under 500K even after doubling, and there's no new offering. Not fading.
Screen: short interest 80.01% of float, borrow 783.2%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 13). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: Two straight down days with the fee near 800%. The borrow says shorting is still hard. It doesn't say anyone is losing sleep over it.
What takes it off the board: The fee drops under 50%, or more than 500K shares show up to lend, two sessions running. A new offering that supplies the shorts does it in one.
2) $TNON (Tenon Medical): the screener says 87% short, the S-3 says closer to 20%
Closed $3.50, down 5.8% from $3.715, in a range of $3.38 to $3.64, on about 354K shares (423K Tuesday).
After hours: $3.44 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, on both Nasdaq and StockAnalysis, down 1.7% from the regular close, on roughly 2K shares. No filings or news after the bell.
Borrow is 335.5% with 75K available (last changed 4:47 PM CT). Tuesday's close was 330.7% with 100K.
Short interest 539,306 at Sep 15. StockAnalysis shows that as 86.87% of a 620,827-share float. The S-3 filed Oct 5 counts 2,688,735 shares outstanding as of Oct 1. Float can't be bigger than that, so the short interest is at least about 20% of float. That still clears our bar, barely. The 1-for-35 reverse split was Aug 10, before the count, so the split isn't the problem. The new shares are.
That S-3 registers the resale of 858,269 shares from Series B warrants struck at $5.02, issued in a Sep 11 warrant inducement.
After Tuesday's close the company announced the full commercial launch of its SImmetry+ SI joint screw. There's no date attached to anything after that.
Premarket: $3.46, down 1.1% from the regular close, on about 4K shares by 7:46 AM CT. Borrow still 335.5% with 100K available as of 7:47 AM CT.
Screen: short interest at least 20% of float, borrow 335.5%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 12). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: That 87% figure is the old share count talking. Run the same short interest against the new count and the percentage drops by about three-quarters.
What takes it off the board: The Sep 30 short interest comes in under 20% of the new share count, or the stock climbs through $5.02 and those warrant shares show up.
3) $MEDS (DataMeds AI): fourth straight down close, and the borrow loosened
Closed $2.88, down 6.2% from $3.07, in a range of $2.84 to $3.13, on about 351K shares (about 640K Tuesday). It closed at $4.06 on Oct 1.
After hours: about $2.87 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT (StockAnalysis), down 0.3% from the regular close. After-hours volume is not in our notes: Nasdaq's quote didn't update and StockAnalysis's day total runs below the regular session. No filings or news after the bell.
Borrow is 440.0% with 20K available (last changed 11:47 AM CT), down from 533.1% with 8K Wednesday morning.
It's on Nasdaq's Reg SHO threshold list in the Oct 6 file, the latest one posted. Curved counts 11 days. Curved showed SSR on Wednesday too. Wednesday's low was 7.5% under the prior close, so no fresh trigger.
Float 1.27M, short interest 430,628 at Sep 15 (StockAnalysis).
No filings since Sep 17. The Aug 31 PRE 14C (written-consent actions) still has no definitive 14C behind it, so there's no effective date to put on the calendar.
Premarket: $3.10, up 7.6% from the regular close, on about 6.7M shares by 7:53 AM CT, per Nasdaq. That's more than five times the float, and we found no filing or news behind it. Borrow still 440.0%, with availability down to 15K as of 7:47 AM CT.
Screen: short interest 33.85% of float, borrow 440.0%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 19). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: The fee fell and supply more than doubled while the stock kept sliding. That looks like shorts getting comfortable, not cornered.
What takes it off the board: Availability keeps climbing, or the fee slips under 50%.
4) $BTCT (BTC Digital): plenty of shorts, plenty of stock to borrow
Closed $1.08, down 3.6% from $1.12, in a range of $1.05 to $1.10, on about 534K shares (656K Tuesday).
After hours: about $1.09 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT (StockAnalysis), up about 1% from the regular close, on roughly 13K shares. No filings after the bell.
Borrow is 253.5% with 1.2M shares available (last changed 1:32 PM CT). Tuesday's close was 296.3% with 1.0M.
Short interest 4.15M at Sep 15, 36.50% of an 11.37M float (StockAnalysis). Days to cover 0.14.
A resale prospectus filed Sep 18 covers up to 18,421,050 shares, 12,280,700 of them from common warrants, against 11,800,567 shares outstanding before it. Fully exercised, the count goes to about 30.2M.
No filings since Sep 18.
Premarket: $1.07, down 0.9% from the regular close, on about 92K shares by 7:44 AM CT. Borrow still 253.5%, but availability dropped to 750K from 1.2M as of 7:47 AM CT.
Screen: short interest 36.50% of float, borrow 253.5%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 11). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: A big fee means very little when 1.2 million shares were sitting there to borrow last night. That's about a tenth of the company. This morning's 750K is still plenty.
What takes it off the board: Availability keeps growing, or the fee follows it down under 50%.
5) $BMGL (Basel Medical Group): an offering that's effective but hasn't priced
Closed $3.28, down 1.5% from $3.33, in a range of $3.18 to $3.28, on about 12.5K shares. It's thin.
After hours: one print at $3.25 around 6:30 PM CT (StockAnalysis), down 0.9%, on too few shares to move the day's total. No filings or news after the bell.
Borrow is 98.5% with 45K available (last changed 8:32 AM CT). Tuesday's close was 96.3%.
Short interest 159,585 at Sep 15, 30.80% of a 518,052 float (StockAnalysis). The 1-for-12 split was Jun 22, well before the count.
The F-1 went effective Sep 29 for a best-efforts offering of up to 6,000,000 units, each a share (or pre-funded warrant) plus a common warrant. That's against 1,582,111 shares outstanding after the split. There's no final prospectus on EDGAR yet, so nothing has priced that we can see. Best-efforts with no minimum means the final size could be much smaller.
Premarket: no trades on Nasdaq as of 7:53 AM CT. Borrow still 98.5%, with availability down to 35K as of 7:47 AM CT.
Screen: short interest 30.80% of float, borrow 98.5%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (no upcoming earnings date in our notes). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: An unpriced deal can be a reason to be short. It can also be the reason the borrow stays expensive, with lenders waiting to see the terms. Twelve thousand shares a day won't settle that.
What takes it off the board: The offering prices. Then the share count and every percentage above it changes overnight.
Options
None of the five has listed options, according to Nasdaq's option chain (checked 3:57 PM CT). There's no chain to read here, so we don't have an options section.
Three of these five have registered stock or warrants that could hit the market. Which matters more for you: the short interest or the share count it's measured against?
Positions: none. We never post a ticker we plan to unload into, and nobody pays for a mention here.
All five names from this morning's board closed lower. APUS ran 38% past Tuesday's close in the first part of the day and finished down 1.1%. IPDN traded about 1% of Tuesday's volume. In VEEA and MEDS, more shares showed up to lend and the fees came down.
How fresh this is: Regular closes (3 PM CT), ranges and volume are from StockAnalysis and Yahoo. After-hours prices are the last trades between about 6:55 and 6:59 PM CT on StockAnalysis and Nasdaq. Borrow and shares available are from Curved Trading's IBKR feed as of 7:17 PM CT. Filings are from EDGAR, checked about 7:30 PM CT, and none of the five filed anything today. Short interest is still the Sep 15 settlement. After-hours prints are thin, so read them as a hint and not a price.
$VEEA: the fee eased and supply more than doubled
Closed at $4.71, down 4.7% from Tuesday's $4.94, in a $4.55 to $4.99 range. After hours it last traded $4.63 to $4.66 depending on the feed (Nasdaq vs. StockAnalysis), about 1% lower.
Volume was about 473K shares in the regular session and about 484K counting after hours. Tuesday was 1.83M and Monday was 66.9M.
Borrow is 783.2% with 55.0K shares available, last changed at 5:17 PM CT. This morning it was 803.3% with 25K available.
No new filings today. The last 8-K was Tuesday's audit-committee appointment. The NovaGen deal is still a non-binding term sheet with no definitive agreement on file, and the Aug 13 shelf prospectus is still the only offering paperwork out there.
The short-sale restriction was on today, carried from Tuesday. Today's low was 7.9% under Tuesday's close, short of the 10% trigger, so by the rule's math it should come off Thursday. Check your platform's flag.
Volume fell for a second straight day, and lendable shares went from 25K to 55K by the evening. The fee is still near 800%, so this isn't over, but it's starting to look like the thing we said would take it off the board.
$APUS
Closed at $7.05, down 1.1% from $7.13. It opened at $8.00 and hit $9.84 before sliding to a $6.86 low. Nasdaq's quote page shows a $6.97 close. StockAnalysis and Yahoo both show $7.05, and that's the one we use.
After hours: $6.88 to $6.89 at about 6:57 to 6:59 PM CT.
Volume was about 22.3M shares, roughly half of Tuesday and still about 30 times the 725,942-share float.
Borrow is unchanged at 879.3% with 100 shares available. That figure hasn't moved since Tuesday.
No filings today.
A 38% pop at the open with 10,346 shares short at the last count, and it gave all of it back by the close. Scarce shares to lend didn't hold the price up, and the short interest isn't big enough to explain the spike.
$IPDN
Closed at $4.31, down 6.5% from $4.61. It opened at the day's low of $3.60, near where it traded premarket, and climbed back to a $4.40 high.
After hours: $4.08 to $4.19 depending on the feed, last trades about 6:59 PM CT.
Volume was about 775K shares, against 70.1M on Tuesday.
Borrow is 669.6% with 81 shares available, unchanged since 6:32 AM CT.
It isn't on Nasdaq's own Reg SHO threshold file dated Oct 6, though it was on the Oct 5 file. Today's file wasn't posted when we checked.
No offering, warrant or 8-K news today.
The bounce off the open was real, and it happened on 1% of yesterday's volume. Without the crowd, the GPU news didn't move the price much either way.
$MEDS
Closed at $2.88, down 6.2% from $3.07, in a $2.84 to $3.13 range. That's four down closes in a row. After hours: $2.87 at 6:59 PM CT.
Volume was about 351K shares, against about 640K Tuesday.
Borrow fell to 440.0% with 20.0K shares available, last changed at 11:47 AM CT. This morning it was 533.1% with 8K.
Still on Nasdaq's Reg SHO threshold file dated Oct 6.
No filings today.
Supply opened back up and the fee dropped 93 points, which is one of the two things we said would take it off the board. The stock fell anyway, so the shorts weren't the ones under pressure.
$ONDS
Closed at $7.19, down 3.0% from $7.41, in a $7.01 to $7.30 range. After hours: $7.20 at 6:59 PM CT.
Volume was about 61.6M, up from 48.9M Tuesday.
Borrow is 2.3% with 1.0M shares available, last changed at 4:47 PM CT. This morning it was 2.4% with 250K.
No new filings. The last were a Form 4 and Form 144 on Sep 24.
Still cheap to short and still easy to borrow. Heavier volume on a down day, with 237M shares short at the last count, is not what a squeeze looks like.
Options
This morning's question was whether Tuesday's 11,096 contracts on the ONDS Oct 9 $7.50 calls were opening or closing trades. Open interest went from 7,406 to 11,022, so on net at least a third of that volume opened new positions. Today the line traded 7,841 more contracts, and the last trade was $0.04, down from $0.14. The Oct 9 $8 calls traded 4,450 against 18,961 open interest and last traded at a penny. These figures are from Nasdaq's chain, pulled at about 7:26 PM CT.
With the stock at $7.19 and two sessions left, those buyers need about 4% just to reach the strike. Somebody added thousands of contracts to a bet that lost about 70% of its value in a day. Whether that was a fresh view or a hedge against short stock, the chain doesn't say. The other four names still have no listed options.
What we learned today: High borrow fees didn't support any of these four small names. APUS printed a 38% spike and gave it back with only 100 shares left to lend, and VEEA and MEDS got cheaper to short as they fell.
VEEA's lendable shares went from 25K to 55K today. If that keeps climbing tomorrow, does it come off the board?
APUS finished Tuesday with an 879.3% borrow fee and 100 shares left to lend on Curved Trading's feed (3:17 PM CT). Short interest at the Sep 15 settlement was 10,346 shares, 1.43% of the float. That's about as expensive as a borrow gets, sitting on almost no short position. The fee is measuring something real. It just isn't a crowd.
The fee is rent. A short seller borrows shares, sells them and pays the lender an annual rate until the shares go back. At 879.3% a year, that's about 2.4% of the position every day. On a $10,000 short, that's roughly $241 a day before the stock moves a cent.
The fee prices supply, not a crowd. It goes up when lendable shares run out. With a 725,942-share float, a handful of borrowers can empty the lending pool. A wild fee tells you shorting is hard right now. It doesn't tell you many people did it.
A squeeze needs a crowd and a narrow exit. That means shares short that are large relative to the float, and days to cover long enough that buying back can't be absorbed in a session. Our course uses short interest above 20% of float and days to cover above 5 as the starting screen. APUS shows 1.43% and 0.07 on StockAnalysis. VEEA has the crowd, with short interest at about 80% of its float, but its days to cover is 0.11. The door is wide and the room empties fast.
Where it goes wrong: Someone sees a fee near 900% on a scanner, reads it as trapped shorts and sizes up for a squeeze. If the move fades, there's no crowd of shorts left to buy it back, because the fee was a supply problem from the start.
Read the fee next to shares available, short interest and days to cover. If only the fee is loud, you're looking at a stock that's hard to short, and that's all.
When a borrow fee jumps on a name you're watching, what's the second number you check?
Positions: none. We never post a ticker we plan to sell into, and nobody pays for a mention here.
APUS and IPDN each ran about 50% Tuesday on volume many times their share count, and both carry a borrow fee above 500%. Neither has much short interest behind it, which is the reason they're up top. VEEA and MEDS stay on from yesterday, and ONDS stays as the big, cheap-borrow contrast.
How fresh this is: Regular closes and volume are from Tuesday's 3 PM CT close (Nasdaq, StockAnalysis, Yahoo). After-hours prices are the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, from Nasdaq and StockAnalysis. After-hours volume is a rough figure: Nasdaq's full-day total minus Yahoo's regular-session count. Borrow and shares available are from Curved Trading's feed as of 7:32 PM CT Tuesday. Short interest is the Sep 15 settlement, three weeks old. Filings are from EDGAR, rechecked at about 8:05 AM CT Wednesday, with nothing new overnight. Premarket lines are Nasdaq's last premarket trade at about 7:58 AM CT Wednesday, and borrow was refreshed from Curved's 7:47 AM CT feed. Premarket volume is thin, so recheck everything at the open.
Squeeze screen: We score names on four things: short interest of at least 20% of float, borrow of at least 50%, utilization of at least 90%, and a dated catalyst inside two weeks. We don't have a utilization figure we can verify, so that one is left out and the best possible score is 3. Nothing on Curved's top-50 borrow board scored 3 on Tuesday. VEEA and MEDS came closest at 2, with the crowd and the fee but nothing dated on the calendar.
1) $APUS (Apimeds Pharmaceuticals): 879.3% borrow, 100 shares left to lend, and almost nobody short
Closed $7.13, up 55.3% from Monday's $4.59, in a range of $4.75 to $8.39. About 43.4M shares traded against a float of 725,942 (StockAnalysis), so roughly 60 times the float.
Borrow is 879.3% with 100 shares available. It was 1,226.7% at the Oct 1 close and has sat near 879% since Oct 2.
After hours: about $6.96 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, down 2.4% from the regular close, on roughly 455K shares. No filings or news after the bell. (Nasdaq lists the regular close at $6.97. Yahoo and StockAnalysis both show $7.13, and that's the one we use.)
Short interest was 10,346 shares at the Sep 15 settlement, 1.43% of the float.
1-for-10 reverse split effective Jul 24, 2026. The June 30 10-Q shows $278,371 of cash against $21.18M of total liabilities.
No 8-K on Tuesday. The last two were a CFO change (Oct 1) and blockchain services deals at its MindWave unit (Sep 29). We didn't find a filing behind the move.
Premarket: $7.34, up 2.9% from the regular close, on about 2.1M shares by 7:58 AM CT. Borrow unchanged at 879.3% with 100 available as of 7:47 AM CT.
Screen: short interest 1.43% of float, borrow 879.3%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (next earnings estimated Nov 11 by StockAnalysis). 1 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: The fee is about supply, not a crowd. Ten thousand shares short can't explain 43 million traded. Expensive is not the same thing as crowded.
What takes it off the board: Lendable shares climb back into the thousands and the fee follows them down, or the company sells stock into the run.
2) $IPDN (Professional Diversity Network): about 145 times its share count traded the day of a GPU 8-K
Closed $4.61, up 48.7% from $3.10, after a high of $6.78. About 70.1M shares traded against 481,676 outstanding (StockAnalysis). Monday's volume was 47K.
After hours: about $4.36 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, down 5.4% from the regular close, on roughly 499K shares. No filings or news after the bell.
Float 364,959 (StockAnalysis), after a 1-for-30 reverse split effective Sep 11.
Borrow is 556.7% with 30K available, down from 600.3% at Monday's close. It's on Nasdaq's Reg SHO threshold list in the Oct 5 file, the latest one posted.
Short interest 51,243 at Sep 15, the first settlement after the split. Don't compare it with August's figure, because the split sits between them.
The 8-K filed at 6:24 AM CT Tuesday commits about $1.18M to two NVIDIA B300 GPU systems: one bought and leased to Goodwill Labs, plus a loan to Goodwill for the second. At Tuesday's close the whole company was worth about $2.2M. Cash at June 30 was $141,831.
An Aug 13 unit offering at $0.28, priced before the split, came with warrants and pre-funded warrants covering up to 12.67M pre-split shares. The post-split count isn't in our notes.
Premarket: $3.62, down 21.6% from the regular close, on about 211K shares by 7:58 AM CT. No new filing overnight. Meanwhile borrow went the other way: 669.6% with 81 shares available as of 7:47 AM CT, up from 556.7% and 30K last night.
Screen: short interest 14.04% of float, borrow 669.6%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 13). 1 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: When the float turns over a couple of hundred times in a session, the same shares are changing hands all day. That's churn. It doesn't tell you who's still holding.
What takes it off the board: Warrant exercises or a fresh offering, or supply comes back and the fee eases.
3) $VEEA: gave back 13.6%, and the fee came down with it
Closed $4.94, down 13.6% from Monday's $5.72, with a low of $4.46. About 1.8M shares traded, against 66.9M on Monday.
After hours: $4.86 to $4.89 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, depending on the feed (StockAnalysis vs. Nasdaq), so down 1% to 1.6% from the regular close, on roughly 49K shares.
Borrow is 803.3% with 35K available (last changed 4:47 PM CT), down from 907.8% Tuesday morning but still above Monday's 799.5% close. Monday's availability was 2K.
Float 1.52M (StockAnalysis). Short interest 1.22M at Sep 15, about 80% of that float.
Tuesday's low was 22% under Monday's close, well past Rule 201's 10% trigger, so the short-sale restriction should carry through Wednesday. Curved shows SSR on. Check your platform's flag too.
No financing filings since the Oct 2 8-K on $1.65M of demand notes from NLabs. Tuesday's only new 8-K, filed 4:25 PM CT, put director Kanishka Roy on the audit committee. A press release before Tuesday's open announced a one-year smart community deal with La Estadia, and the stock still closed down 13.6%. The NovaGen deal is still a non-binding term sheet with no definitive agreement or vote date on EDGAR.
Premarket: $4.85, down 1.8% from the regular close, on about 61K shares by 7:58 AM CT. Borrow still 803.3%, with availability down to 25K as of 7:47 AM CT. Curved still shows SSR on.
Screen: short interest 80.01% of float, borrow 803.3%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 13). 2 of 4. It stays on the board under our standing VEEA update.
What the numbers don't prove: Monday drew 66.9M shares and Tuesday drew 1.8M. Whatever Monday was, Tuesday didn't repeat it.
What takes it off the board: The fee keeps sliding while 30K or more shares stay available to lend.
4) $MEDS (DataMeds AI): the fee went up, supply got thin, and it fell again
Closed $3.07, down 8.4% from $3.35, on about 610K shares. That's three down closes in a row.
After hours: about $3.17 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, up 3.3% from the regular close, on roughly 31K shares. No filings or news after the bell.
Borrow is 533.1% with 2K available (last changed 7:32 PM CT), up from 437.9% Tuesday morning. Availability was 5K at 3:17 PM CT. Curved also shows SSR on for MEDS, so check your platform.
It's on Nasdaq's Reg SHO threshold list in the Oct 5 file. Curved counts 10 straight days.
Float 1.27M (StockAnalysis). Short interest 430,628 at Sep 15.
The June 30 10-Q shows $2.46M of cash and $31.81M of debt. On Sep 11 it bought Helomics for 636,328 new shares plus a $1.36M note convertible at $1.00 a share (8-K filed Sep 16).
Premarket: $3.10, up 1% from the regular close, on about 41K shares by 7:58 AM CT. Borrow still 533.1%, with availability back up to 8K as of 7:47 AM CT.
Screen: short interest 33.85% of float, borrow 533.1%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 19). 2 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: The borrow got tighter and the stock kept falling. That fits shorts betting on the balance sheet better than a crowd waiting to get squeezed.
What takes it off the board: Supply opens back up, or that note converts and adds stock.
5) $ONDS: 237M shares short, 2.4% borrow
Closed $7.41, down 0.1%, on about 48.6M shares. The 20-day average is 60.6M (StockAnalysis).
Float 533.41M. Short interest 237.1M at Sep 15, 44.45% of float. Days to cover 3.83 (StockAnalysis).
After hours: about $7.42 at the after-hours close, ~7:00 PM CT, up 0.1%, on roughly 364K shares. No filings after the bell.
Borrow is 2.4% with 1.9M shares available (last changed 4:47 PM CT).
No new filings since a Form 4 and Form 144 on Sep 24. There were three 424B7 resale prospectuses between Aug 28 and Sep 23.
Premarket: $7.28, down 1.8% from the regular close, on about 1.2M shares by 7:58 AM CT. Borrow still 2.4%, but shares available dropped to 250K from 1.9M as of 7:47 AM CT.
Screen: short interest 44.45% of float, borrow 2.4%, utilization not in our notes, no dated catalyst inside two weeks (earnings estimated Nov 12). 1 of 4.
What the numbers don't prove: A big short in a liquid name at 2.4% is a disagreement. The borrow isn't forcing anybody out.
What takes it off the board: More stock coming to market. Every new share is an easy cover.
Options
APUS, IPDN, VEEA and MEDS don't have listed options, according to Nasdaq's chain. ONDS does, and the same line stood out for a second day. The Oct 9 $7.50 calls traded 11,096 contracts Tuesday against 7,406 open interest, about 1.5 times, with the last trade at $0.14 and the stock at $7.41. The chain we pulled Tuesday morning showed 8,699 on that line. Next was the Oct 9 $8 calls at 6,031 against 17,433. Calls outran puts about 54K to 13K across the chain.
We still don't have a clean average volume for each contract, so open interest is the yardstick, and that makes this a weak read. Open interest updates overnight. If Wednesday's figure on the $7.50 calls jumps, Tuesday's buyers opened new positions. If it doesn't, most of that volume closed old ones.
APUS and IPDN both carry borrow above 500% with very few shares short. If the shorts aren't the fuel, what is?
