HUN just posted its worst single-day drop in recent memory, falling 17% on June 16 to close at $13.18 — and the short sellers who spent the past month quietly rebuilding positions were well positioned for it.
Short interest has climbed sharply over the past 30 days, rising 36% to reach 17.1% of the free float. That's a meaningful and growing bet against the stock. The bulk of the move came in two distinct steps: a jump from roughly 21.7 million to 25.1 million shares short around late May, then another leg higher to near 30 million shares this week. Despite that buildup, the borrow market remains notably loose. Availability has actually expanded sharply following Tuesday's sell-off, rising to 892% — meaning there are nearly nine times as many shares available to borrow as there are shares currently short. Cost to borrow is also cheap at 0.43%, barely moving despite the surge in short interest. That combination — rising short conviction but plentiful, cheap borrow — points to a well-supplied, institutional short campaign rather than a crowded squeeze setup. Options positioning tells a similarly calm story: the put/call ratio sits at 0.67, just under one standard deviation above its 20-day average of 0.62, far below the 1.74 peak seen in mid-May when hedging demand was far more acute.
The Street's reaction to the drop has been fast. Mizuho's John Roberts upgraded this morning — June 17 — from Underperform to Neutral, raising his target from $10 to $14, a notable pivot from a firm that had been among the most bearish. The broader analyst consensus remains cautious, with ten Hold ratings and one Sell, and a mean price target of $14.58 — implying modest upside from current levels but no real conviction on a recovery. Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup all lifted targets in early May after the prior earnings print, but kept neutral-equivalent ratings. The bull case centres on differentiated MDI capacity and operating leverage into a construction and automotive recovery. Bears counter that oversupply in global polyurethanes persists, Asian product displacement in South America is an ongoing headwind, and EBITDA estimates have been revised materially lower for both 2025 and 2026. Valuation multiples reflect the damage: EV/EBITDA has compressed by more than 1.3 turns over the past 30 days, and the price-to-book has dropped to 0.85 — below replacement value. The ORTEX short score dipped from a recent high of 67.5 on June 15 to 58.1 on June 16, suggesting the acute phase of bearish pressure may have partially unwound in a single session.
Peer performance on Tuesday underscores that the move in HUN was not purely sector-driven. OLN and TROX both fell around 5-6% on the day, while EMN dropped roughly 2.7%. On the week, KRO and TROX were up 6-7% heading into Tuesday's session — making HUN's 9% weekly loss look particularly company-specific. Institutional ownership provides little in the way of a near-term floor catalyst: BlackRock holds 7.2%, AQR 6.6%, and T. Rowe Price added a large new position in Q1. But none of those filings are recent enough to reflect how those holders have responded to the stock's 2026 decline, and Peter Huntsman himself trimmed roughly 556,000 shares in early March — a modest but directional signal from the founder's family.
The company's last earnings print in late April produced a sharp 10% single-day gain and an 11% five-day rally, suggesting the stock can move violently on fundamental beats. The next print is due July 31, and the question heading into it is whether Tuesday's sell-off was driven by a specific negative catalyst or simply a continuation of the structural oversupply thesis — and whether the Mizuho upgrade, arriving the morning after the crash, reflects a genuine valuation floor or simply a mechanical target-reset after a share price that has now dipped below prior low-end targets.
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