BB has just delivered its biggest weekly gain in recent memory, tacking on 43% to close the week at CAD 17.91 — and the most striking feature of the move is how little the short-selling community appears to have been caught offside.
The earnings result on June 25 is clearly the driver. The previous two notes flagged a wide range of outcomes: April's print had produced a 31% five-day surge while December 2025's went down 12% on the day. This time the market chose the bullish path emphatically. The single-day move registered at 31.6%, and the stock kept going — up another 43% on the week by June 30. That is roughly where the stock ended April's post-earnings run, except this time the starting price was already elevated by the earlier rally, putting BB at a level not seen in years.
Short interest barely moved through all of it. Bears did not cover en masse, but nor did they press. Short interest edged up just 1.3% on the week to 1.83% of the free float — around 10.8 million shares — and is up 17% over the past month in absolute share terms, a gentle drift that reads more like passive rebuilding than conviction shorting. That is a low absolute level; the previous notes described the same dynamic of shorts quietly rebuilding after the May–June rally, and that pattern has not changed materially despite the stock more than doubling from those levels. Borrowing costs have actually fallen — down 20% on the week to 0.41% annualised, the lowest level in at least six weeks. Availability is running at 459%, meaning there are roughly four-and-a-half shares available to borrow for every one currently lent out, well within the normal range and completely consistent with an uncrowded short book. The lending market is not reacting to this move as a squeeze story; it looks like a fundamental re-rating that shorts are watching from the sidelines.
The ORTEX short score sits at 35, a mid-range reading with no meaningful directional drift over the past two weeks. The score has oscillated between 34.8 and 36.4 throughout June, suggesting neither mounting short pressure nor a capitulation signal. Factor scores are similarly neutral — a sector score of 50, a short score rank of 53, a days-to-cover rank of 41. None of these are elevated. What has been exceptional is momentum, which a recent ORTEX stock-score note placed at 95.2, the strongest pillar in BB's profile by a wide margin and consistent with the price behaviour seen all month. The valuation data is stale (as of early 2025) and should not be used to frame the current price level; the stock has repriced dramatically since those readings were taken.
On the institutional side, the most notable holder is Fairfax Financial, sitting at 5.97% with no reported change as of March — a long-term anchor that has not moved. BlackRock added nearly 2.5 million shares in the period ending May 31, bringing its position to 5.08%. Vanguard Capital Management reported a new position of 16.7 million shares as of March 31, a significant fresh entry. Insider activity from April — the most recent data — was routine grant-and-sell mechanics at the CAD 3.56 level, executed before the stock's extraordinary run; the significance scores were all at the minimum. There is nothing in the insider file that anticipated the current price level, but nothing that contradicts the bull case either.
Close peers had a strong week too, though none matched BB's pace. TENB gained 35% and APPS rose 39% on the week — both correlated names posting exceptional returns — while VRNS added 20% and GRRR climbed 16%. The breadth of gains across the peer group suggests a sector-wide re-rating is partially at work, though BB's 43% move still stands out as the largest by a material margin.
The next earnings date is pencilled in for September 24. Between now and then, the story is whether the post-results price level — more than four times where insiders were selling in April — can attract either meaningful new institutional buying or a more organised short response. Neither has materialised yet.
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