Serve Robotics (NASDAQ:SERV) is a new AI name coming out of Silicon Valley looking to re-shape the food delivery business. By implementing automation into deliveries through a fleet of self-driving, environment-friendly robots, Serve is slowly moving into more markets across the United States. The company already has a strong footprint in Los Angeles and last week announced a partnership with several fast-food chains in Miami that will begin utilizing Serve’s delivery robots.
As is often the case with tech startups, short sellers will make their presence known. Using the Orbisa Securities Lending Dashboard in TWS, it can be seen that this stock is a popular one to short. The utilization for SERV sits at just below 99%. Nearly the entire inventory available to be loaned is already on loan, demonstrating the sentiment of the short seller when assessing SERV. The Short Interest Indicator is 33%, and this tells us the number of shares on loan divided by the total outstanding shares of the stock. This can be used as a proxy of Short Interest. Short Interest takes into account internalized short sales while Orbisa’s Short Interest Indicator does not include internalization.
With inventory in demand, the borrow fee currently sits just north of 32%. The fee hovered around 10% for the previous month, but last week it jumped after the stock tumbled nearly 50% due to news that Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) no longer held a stake in the company as of 2/14/2025. Trading as high as $23.10 the day before the news was announced, the stock dropped to a low of $11.63 the following week. Daily volume for Serve hovered below 10 million shares before the news but spiked to over 53 million the day after, while On-Loan Quantity also increased by 29 million that day.
SERV Utilization vs Short Interest Indicator (past month)
Source: Interactive Brokers Securities Lending Dashboard. Data is provided by Orbisa.
Even with the high demand for shares of SERV, IBKR does have share availability for traders looking to short. As of 2/24/2025 before the open, there were 4,000 shares available for shorting. For stocks which are popular with short sellers, availability will fluctuate throughout the day. Even if shares are not readily available and need to be sourced, IBKR tracks client demand and will attempt to find locates to support new customer shorts.
With SERV’s growing footprint across the US, short sellers will be closely monitoring success of the delivery robots and whether the technology will be proven. Others have tried to enter this field including privately-owned Starship Technologies and Zume Inc., which shut down. But no individual firm has taken grasp of the industry and it remains to be seen if this technology is ready for the front line. A clearer picture will be in order as more consumers are exposed to the product and are able to compare their experience with the human touch.
SERV Stock Price and Borrow Fee Chart (1/25/25-2/24/25)
Disclosure: Interactive Brokers
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