I'm not necessarily seeing the shorts exiting at this time.
I was comparing the data around the short positions from late Jun 2020 and now (see sheet below). It really doesn't look like the shorts are exiting their long term short positions - in fact, I think it has become even more entrenched.
From Jun 2020 to now, the CYDY daily volume is lower, the number of shares being borrowed has doubled, the number of loans has ramped up (~100 vs ~200), and the cost to borrow is half (~20 vs ~10). The shares short utilization in Jun 20 was 60-70%....now it is basically 100%. The average age of contract has almost quadrupled (~13 to ~60).
To me it looks like there are more longer term short positions and it comes out to be on average a higher number of shares per contract (~150K).
Between 11Jul2021 and 20Jul2021 there was a significant number flurry of shares short contracted (from ~2M/day to 25M/day).
The "Security Lending Volume" (meaning contracted shares short) is about the daily short volume. So, it looks like some day traders jumping in/out, but the average age of the contracts has increased.
On the up side.....the days to cover is 10x from Jun 2020, and the contract age is 4x. There are some serious holdout bears hanging in there.
I sense another significant bear raid getting ready in the next couple of weeks if there is no concrete news that gets announced. If there is good news then we can expect some pain inflicted on the shorts...otherwise.....the roller coaster continues.
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