Pop Mart has hit a top-tier 100 Short Squeeze Score following a 45% price rally, yet short data shows no significant short covering to date.

Real-time short interest has surged from 2% to 16% of float, even as long interest data and hedge fund positioning also increased modestly.

The extreme imbalance between high short interest and institutional long holdings indicates this is a heavily crowded trade, not a Battleground Stock.

Pop Mart (9992.HK). We have written on this name before; this is a real-time update. The real-time short interest has continued to rise steadily, climbing from 2% to 16% short interest % of float. It is currently the 6th highest total in its peer group and the second largest in terms of recent changes.

Pop Mart sells designer figurines that young adults collect via stores and vending machines. The price return making this a $45B USD company strikes many as speculative or faddish, although sell-side analysts remain bullish.

The stock previously fell almost 50% from peak but has risen 45% in the past few weeks.

This rise has taken the stock, already crowded at the 75% level, to the top-tier 100 short squeeze score based on recent mark-to-market returns. The S3 short squeeze score takes into account these mark-to-market losses based on recent returns.

Despite this elevated score, the stock has not technically squeezed because there hasn’t been significant net covering; in fact, we see none at all in the securities lending data.

The long-interest data and hedge fund positioning data both rose over time, showing conviction both on the way down and on the way up.

The short interest data is currently much larger than the institutional long interest, which is unusual, but it means it is not a Battleground Stock in the traditional S3 sense—it's simply a very crowded one-way bet that has yet to blink.

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