Critical Metals Corporation (CRML) saw its stock price drop sharply by 5.23% during intraday trading on Thursday, marking a significant decline for the metals company.

The price movement comes as the company experienced one of the largest indicative borrow rate increases among liquid option names, with its borrow rate reaching 24.63% - an increase of 2.85 percentage points. Such a substantial rise in borrow rates typically indicates increased demand to borrow shares for short selling, suggesting bearish sentiment among traders and potentially limited share availability for borrowing.

Higher borrow costs can create additional selling pressure as short sellers may need to cover positions more quickly, while also signaling to the market that institutional investors are taking bearish positions on the stock.