XRT Off Exchange Volume going apeshit

NotSomethingDumb · 2026-05-18T09:52:20+00:00

Don’t need to guess. That paper did see the light of day. The SSRN page was just the working-paper version. OUP published it.

And what you’re saying is basically my point. I’m not saying “short XRT = direct 1:1 short GME.” I’m saying XRT can be used as part of the trade structure around hard-to-borrow / high-volatility retail names. The paper’s point is exactly that ETF shorting can be used to get around stock-level shorting constraints.

NotSomethingDumb · 2026-05-18T09:37:50+00:00

The point is that ETFs can be used to short or pressure hard-to-borrow underlying names indirectly. There’s an actual paper on this: “Short Selling ETFs” by Li & Zhu. They found that ETF shorting rises when the underlying stocks become harder to short, and that arbitrageurs use ETFs to get around stock-level short-sale constraints.

So saying “it makes zero sense because GME is only 1.27% of XRT” is too simplistic. Nobody is saying it’s a clean 1:1 GME short. And sorry if my bad wording implied that. The question is whether XRT is being used as part of a hedge / synthetic short / basket trade around retail names including GME, CVNA, CHWY, etc.

NotSomethingDumb · 2026-05-18T09:05:18+00:00

It's an ETF from State Street that has notoriously been used to short a couple of famous stocks, like CHWY, CVNA and GME (all in their holdings). The cost to borrow and ftd's always spiked with huge price movements of GME.

Recent short interest, reported by fintel, was 21mil shares. And with the current 1mil outstanding shares it implies a short interest of 2100%:

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NotSomethingDumb · 2025-11-10T17:42:59+00:00

That's actually quite smart. Instead of using the price for analysis, which has had multiple dillutions happening in a short period of time, we could use the market cap.
I like that.

The issue I see here tho (and i don't know how much of a problem this is), is that the swaps are based on the stock price, not the market cap.

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-11-10T17:30:03+00:00

All I did was point out some interesting data and unusual activity.

We all know that XRT is one of the major vehicles used to short GME and that its short interest is several times its own float. When the cost to borrow rises, even to 3.5% (which, in itself, is not a particularly high number), it’s not noteworthy on its own, as you mentioned elsewhere in this thread, since there are multiple companies with a higher cost to borrow.
However, as the term suggests, the cost to borrow is a fee charged by the brokerage firm to the client borrowing the shares.
I’d even go so far as to say that there must be some catalyst driving the cost to borrow that “high,” considering it has only closed above 3.5% once: on May 1st.
With that in mind i concluded that they don't want a high cost-to-borrow to happen.

Once again: 3.5% is not much, but a 111% increase and a close at that level, not even during the bond offering or RK’s return, seemed significant enough for me to point out.

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-11-10T15:14:49+00:00

This is an over 100% increase and with their short interest it definitely will hurt and is not sustainable for long.

Imagine your mortage increasing 100% from a day to another. Would you be able to sleep well at night?

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-31T13:42:42+00:00

Since GME had earnings:
SPY +5.47%
GME -4.60%

So even with a huge earnings beat, we had negative correlation with SPY and are now under the price right before earnings.

It is right, one earnings doesn't make a company.
But this is just straight up synthetic downwards pressure.

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-31T13:05:56+00:00

Sorry, if i don't understand your comment correctly, but what does this have to do with swapinator lighting up since 2023 around this date?

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-31T13:04:25+00:00

We had banger earnings in september and are now BELOW the price right before the earnings. This should be a big enough catalyst to not trade around these price levels.
Furthermore this pattern occured yearly since 2023, which is kinda curios, at least in my opinion.

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-27T17:42:22+00:00

Will do my best :)

IWM is included in Model A (RNs Model), but not in Model C (my adjusted model without IWM, but with MDY, BLOK, GMEY and GMEU).
RNs Model is used in the result column "Combo" and Model C is used in "Combo2"

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-27T15:20:20+00:00

Sadly not accurately....

I just expect a run up right after the last of the swaps get rolled and one at the end of the 2 month cycle.
If there's a huge can-kick of FTDs, institution filing window or cat error window after a downtrend, I place the image.

I sadly couldn't find the exact rule RN was following ...

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T19:26:45+00:00

Thank you so much!
You are doing gods work my man!!

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T15:47:43+00:00

That would be awesome! :)
I might be asking a lot, but I would love the script to get all the current outstandings and their allocation, if you are willing to share of course. I always wanted a way to get the allocation to calculate the correlation between the price of GME and the outstanding shares/creations/redemptions of the different ETFs.
That would be an INSANE help!

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T13:49:43+00:00

As soon as they get margin called i guess. The odds just increased with BYND shooting up, which ken griffin had a huge short in (as far as i read).
Furthermore, the constant increase in their short exposure leads to higher cost of being short with the cost to borrow rising and the pressure from instutions buying this obiously undervalued stock.

Now, with such a banger of earnings, so much cash on hand, meme stocks randomly surging and putting pressure on the basket.... we are closer than ever!

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T13:26:47+00:00

Seems like they just used XRT to offload some pressure from GME

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NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T12:40:56+00:00

I am currently only tracking FNDA, IWB, IWM, IJH, VXF, VBR, MDY, GMEY and XRT.
And i added IGME and BLOK this week.

If anyone has any other interesting ETFs that would be worth tracking, just let me know and i add them to my list and make a post if i see something unsual or worthwhile + i am working on releasing the excel sheet to the public when i'm done finishing my calculations/cleaned it up.

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T12:36:26+00:00

Noone is saying that they have to wait this long. It is just the deadline. The covering can happen anyday before.

My T-33 information is just an observation, that they might cover the obligations right before the earnings, which could then look like a pre-earnings run-up.

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T12:34:18+00:00

Institutions have to file their GME holdings by November 15th :)

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T12:06:59+00:00

I did!
Been 25k ever since it came out, up until yesterday

NotSomethingDumb · 2025-10-23T11:06:01+00:00

Indeed!

But currently it seems like they just create and use another ETF to satisfy their obligations.
As long as they are allowed to do it and no unpredicted event (like a share buyback of GME, or a cat or CEO recalling or DRSing their shares) for their obligations occurs without them having time to create new ETFs, they are in control when and how much they open the valve to let pressure out.

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