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Airlines Are The Short-Seller’s Quarter – easyJet Shares On Loan Up 33x, But Get Squeezed On Tanker Bets

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Jacob Wolinsky
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airline short interest percent change q1 2026
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Global securities lending revenue hit $3.84 billion in Q1 2026, up 31 percent year-over-year and the largest Q1 ever recorded by EquiLend. EquiLend is a securities lending platform started in late 2001 by a consortium of major banks. The company runs the infrastructure that automates the lending and borrowing of securities (stocks and bonds) between agent lenders, who hold inventory on behalf of pension funds and asset managers, and prime brokers, who borrow on behalf of hedge funds. EquiLend also publishes industry data through its Purple Issue reports, the most recent of which is the source for the figures in this article.

The headline number above is from the EquiLend Purple Issue 22 report, but it is not the most interesting...

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Jacob Wolinsky is the ex-Founder of Valuewalk.com (founded 2011, sold 2023). He is founder of HedgeFundAlpha (formerly ValueWalk Premium), a hedge fund focused intelligence service for institutional investors. Prior to founding Valuewalk, Jacob covered small caps, worked recruiting members for a large hedge fund community and freelance financial journalism. Jacob lives with his wife and six kids in Passaic Park NJ. - Email: jacob(at)hedgefundalpha.com. For confidential inquires email me for my Signal ID. Other methods of secure communication are also available. FD: Most of my portfolio is in I mostly purchase broad-based ETFs, mutual funds or individual bonds - I do this for performance reasons and to avoid any potential conflict of interest or occasional receipt of insider information. I will disclose if I have a stake in any company, but in general I have few stocks and I avoid any trading especially around topics I am covering.