Bob Sloan, founder and managing partner of S3 Partners, said the firm’s short interest data showed no evidence of widespread “predatory trading” targeting the fund’s portfolio. Instead, short interest across its largest positions was mixed, with bearish bets rising in some stocks while remaining flat or declining in others. By contrast, short interest in Sandisk and Applied Digital declined by 10% and 7%. As a result, he estimated that between 30% and 40% of the short interest in those companies reflected hedging activity rather than outright bearish bets. According to S3’s data, short interest in both CoreWeave and Core Scientific increased steadily into the summer before retreating as their share prices weakened.