Four Critical Minerals Stocks Had Short Interest Above 20% of Estimated Float on Sept. 30

Four U.S.-listed critical minerals companies had short positions above 20% of estimated tradable shares on Sept. 30, while OKX scheduled Tether (USDT)-settled stock perpetual futures tied to Critical Metals Corp. and MP Materials Corp.

Critical Metals Corp. (CRML) had 28,033,722 shares sold short. United States Antimony Corporation (UAMY) had 37,616,508, MP Materials Corp. (MP) had 36,621,035 and Energy Fuels Inc. (UUUU) had 56,233,124.

Compared with estimated freely tradable shares, those positions equaled 33.85% of CRML's estimated float, 28.50% of UAMY's, 25.37% of MP's and 22.66% of UUUU's. Float refers to the estimated portion of a company's shares available to trade. The percentages depend on float estimates, while the share counts record the short positions on the settlement date.

Short interest records open short positions on a settlement date. It does not identify who held them, show whether they were hedges or indicate how positions changed after Sept. 30. It also does not establish that short sellers will rush to buy shares back, a move sometimes called a short squeeze. Brokers report short interest twice each month; daily short-sale volume is a separate measure.

OKX scheduled Tether (USDT)-settled stock perpetual futures tied to CRML and MP for Oct. 20. Its schedule set the CRML contract for 5:15 a.m. ET (09:15 UTC) and the MP contract for 5:45 a.m. ET (09:45 UTC).

The contracts track share prices through a reference index and provide price exposure without ownership of the underlying shares. Availability varies by region, and stock short-interest figures do not measure positions in the futures.

MP has a separate policy arrangement with the U.S. Department of Defense. The agreement includes a 10-year, $110-per-kilogram price floor for specified neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) products that MP stockpiles or sells. The commitment concerns those products, not MP's share price or the other three companies.

The Sept. 30 figures are a dated snapshot and cannot show whether the positions later rose or fell. A later short-interest report will be needed to establish how the counts changed.