Sivers Semiconductors: A 17% Short Bet Against a 1,700% Rally — Earnings Will Settle the Score

Shares surge 1,700% on AI hype but short interest hits 17%; Q1 earnings due May 29 may reveal disconnect with fundamentals.

The story of Sivers Semiconductors has become a battle between two opposing forces. On one side, a social-media-driven rally has sent the stock surging more than 1,700 percent in a matter of months, fueled by hype around artificial intelligence and optical components. On the other, short sellers have amassed their biggest bet yet against the Swedish chipmaker. With first-quarter earnings due on Friday, the outcome of that clash will come into sharper focus.

The share price has already shown how quickly sentiment can shift. On Tuesday, the stock plunged 15.49 percent to 73.40 SEK, paring the company’s market capitalisation to roughly 21.9 billion SEK. The selling continued on Thursday, with a further 4.83 percent decline that left the stock at €6.90 and the market cap at around 23.5 billion SEK — equivalent to about $2.5 billion. The Thursday drop came as data revealed that the proportion of shares out on loan had exploded from just 1.6 percent of free float at the start of March to approximately 17 percent — a clear sign that a significant chunk of the market is betting on a fall.

Analysts heading into the earnings release expect the numbers to show that the business has not kept pace with the share price. For the first quarter, the consensus forecast is a loss of 0.10 SEK per share, an improvement from the year-ago loss of 0.19 SEK. Revenue, however, is seen slipping about 5.7 percent to 74.0 million SEK, down from 78.5 million SEK in the same quarter of 2025. For the full year 2026, analysts project revenue of 359.8 million SEK and a net loss of 0.34 SEK per share.

The earnings release was originally scheduled for May 20 but was delayed to May 29 because of an accounting change. Sivers is preparing for a dual listing on the Nasdaq in the United States and has switched to U.S. auditing standards. That transition required restating its 2025 annual results — and the restatement revealed that last year’s net loss was larger than previously reported.

Despite the near-term uncertainty, several institutional catalysts are lined up. On June 1, Sivers is set to be added to the OMX Stockholm Benchmark Index and the MSCI Small-Cap Index, a move that should draw passive inflows regardless of quarterly performance. The company is also building strategic partnerships with Ayar Labs, POET and Jabil to accelerate work on external light sources for data communications — key pieces of the long-term growth story around AI infrastructure.

But risks are piling up alongside the ambitions. Reports have emerged of an investigation into potential insider transactions, and the Nordnet platform has flagged the stock as high-risk, pointing to the yawning gap between the recent rally and the underlying fundamentals. Meanwhile, the explosive price action has drawn scrutiny: an X account called “Serenity” — the same profile that sparked a 77 percent surge in French chipmaker X-Fab weeks earlier — recommended Sivers, amplifying volatility that may not be grounded in financial reality.

Friday’s numbers will either validate the optimism that sent the stock into the stratosphere or start closing a gap that short sellers are betting is unsustainable.