I went down the rabbit hole and I'm hoping someone way smarter than me cna poke holes in this research.
$108M market cap consumer health company. 40.18% of float short on only 8.9M shares. 1,505,322 confirmed Failures to Deliver pulled directly from sec.gov — that's 16.9% of the entire float that has never been delivered. Borrow rate hit 265% annualised, currently 222% and rising. Zero shares available to borrow. Not low. Zero.
The locate ratio on June 2nd was 746,859 non-exempt shorts executed against 500 shares available to borrow. That's 1,494:1. Make that make sense. 97-99% of all short volume through dark pools versus a normal 40-60%.
Here's the part that matters. Exempt market maker volume collapsed 98.3% in three days. June 2nd: 50,632. June 5th: 856. That's not a strategy unwinding. That's an abrupt stop. Meanwhile borrow rate is rising on the same day. Rising rate plus collapsed exempt volume means the market maker arm withdrew but the underlying trapped short is still there — bidding desperately for shares that don't exist.
June 2nd borrow rate was perfectly flat all day at 271.40%. Start equals min equals max equals latest. That's a contractual fixed rate. One entity. One prime broker. One last stand. 797,491 shares under a single negotiated agreement. That entity appears to be gone now.
$39M in combined losses and borrow costs. $218,705 per day. $437,409 paid this past weekend while markets were closed and nothing could be done. Position needs stock at $2.88 to break even. Down 71% from here. Unrecoverable.
Monday open watch the exempt volume and borrow rate. June 15th May FTD data drops. June 18th options expiry with 4,971 OI on the $10 calls. June 30th Alua Capital hard deadline to return all capital.
NFA DYOR. I used Claude for the grunt work.