Record Short Interest Hits Microsoft Ahead of Earnings, Most Bearish Since 2015
MSFT is trading near its 52-week low of $349.2 (13% above the low).
Summary
Short interest in Microsoft has surged to 92 million shares, or 1.27% of float, the highest level since May 2015. Bearish positioning is at a decade-plus extreme with little covering ahead of Wednesday's earnings report. The pressure intensified after Alphabet's capex hike and cloud growth spooked investors on AI infrastructure spending, dragging Microsoft down 3% last week. The stock is already down over 18% YTD, underperforming the S&P 500 by roughly 25 percentage points. This follows Microsoft's own projection of nearly $190 billion in FY26 capex, and the market is now bracing for potential further spending increases. Earnings tonight will either validate the bearish thesis or trigger a sharp short squeeze.
At the time of this announcement, MSFT was trading at $395.01 on NASDAQ in the Technology sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $2.9T. The 52-week trading range was $349.20 to $555.45. This news item was assessed with negative market sentiment and an importance score of 8 out of 10. Source: Binance News.