Virgin Galactic runs a suborbital space tourism business, flying paying passengers to the edge of space. Even after more than doubling this past week to a $622M market cap, the stock remains down 99% from its June 2021 peak five years ago.

Shorts hold a bigger position than institutional active and passive longs. Short notional is $118M compared to $45M active long and $58M passive long, more than both combined.

The borrow market keeps the pressure on the shorts that remain. Utilization sits at 88.5%, the fee is 9.12%, and S3's Squeeze Score is maxed at 100/100. Shorts are down $64M year-to-date on mark-to-market, against $62M notional on May 20.

SPCE share price more than doubled in a week to $6.18, squeezing shorts and rewarding longs.

Virgin Galactic enters June with shorts getting squeezed, and the positioning explains why. Shorts have committed more than long managers on either side of the book: $118.3M short against $44.9M active and $58.2M passive long. Longs have been building — passive holdings hit a one-year high of 9.4 million shares — but still sit well below the 19.1 million held short. That leaves shorts as a marginal buyer if the rally extends.

Short interest topped 22% of float by mid-May while the stock went nowhere, leaving a crowded short base. Then the catalysts hit: a Jefferies Buy reiteration, a reaffirmed Q4 launch timeline, and the May 27 VSS Unity glide flight, the company's first flight test in two years. Momentum and retail flows chased the news ahead of the SpaceX IPO, and the crowded short cut both ways: a rallying-cry for retail longs and a direct accelerant as shorts bought to cover. Short interest fell to a one-month low of 19 million shares as the stock ran 145%, utilization eased from near 99% to 88%, and the borrow fee dropped to 9%, lower, but still elevated.

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