Motley Fool ran a headline today asking whether Zip is a buy down 55%. The short sellers have been answering that question for a year now, and their answer is no.
Short interest in ZIP sat at 5.91% in May 2025. It's at 12.19% today. That's not a position someone closed and reopened — it's a position that kept getting added to as the stock fell. The peak so far was 12.76% on 14 April. The downtrend in the share price and the uptrend in the short trace the same hand from the other side.
What's interesting isn't the direction. BNPL is a sector full of broken charts. It's the persistence. A 12% short position takes weeks to build and months to unwind. Whoever's holding it isn't trading the bounce.
Quick caveat before drawing conclusions: data is ASIC T+4, so the figure is from last Friday, not yesterday. And a short position tells you what someone thinks at the size they're willing to back it — not whether they're right.
Down 55%. Short interest at 12%. Both numbers still moving in the same direction.