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Yeti Shorts Have Run Out of Shares to Borrow

Yeti Shorts Have Run Out of Shares to Borrow

(Bloomberg) -- A rally that’s doubled the share price of cooler-maker Yeti Holdings Inc. this year has attracted so much short selling that the bears have run out of stock to borrow.

Short interest has surged to 64 percent of the float, up from 23 percent at the start of the year, making Yeti the fifth most shorted stock in the U.S. based on the free float, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners. That’s caused fees to climb as high as 30 percentage points on an annual basis, which is "extraordinarily high," he said. Fees to borrow shares of Apple Inc., for example, are about 0.3 percent, according to S3 data.

"The short demand is there -- we’re seeing rates go up and up and up," Dusaniwsky said in an interview. "There’s just no stock borrow left."

Yeti Shorts Have Run Out of Shares to Borrow

Better-than-expected sales of Yeti products, which also include mugs and outdoor chairs, have fueled a rally that’s created more than $1 billion in value for the Austin, Texas-based company this year. The stock gained 24 percent this week alone, aided by results from Dick’s Sporting Goods, which demonstrated Yeti’s brand strength, according to Jefferies.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeran Wittenstein in San Francisco at jwittenstei1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Scott Schnipper

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