Huntsman Corporation heads into its July 30 earnings date with the stock at a 52-week low, short sellers trimming at the margins, and analysts nudging targets in opposite directions — a setup that reflects genuine uncertainty rather than any clear resolution.
The stock closed Tuesday at $10.62, down 7% on the week and off 31% over the past month. That continued slide from the previous note's $11.38 reference point is notable: the call-skewed options positioning flagged last week as a potential contrarian signal has not attracted a meaningful recovery bid. The put/call ratio has edged slightly higher to 0.42 — still more than 1.3 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.54 — meaning the call-heavy skew remains intact, but the stock keeps falling regardless. Peers didn't help the mood: OLN fell 7.6% on the week and TROX dropped 5.7%, confirming the selling pressure is a chemicals-sector story, not purely a HUN-specific one.
Short interest has trimmed slightly but remains deeply elevated. Bears hold roughly 28.3 million shares short — 16.3% of the free float — down about 4% over the week from the mid-June peak near 30.6 million shares. The month-over-month build is still 30%, so the structural short campaign is intact even as tactical shorts book some gains near the lows. What the borrow market is telling a different story: availability has expanded massively to 1,853%, one of the loosest readings in the data window, with cost-to-borrow at just 0.49%. Despite nearly doubling over the past month, that rate remains trivial. There is no squeeze pressure here. Shorts have room to press or hold cheaply, and new entrants face essentially no friction in the lending market.
The Street is in a holding pattern, with targets clustering around $13-15 and no firm willing to step up with a Buy. Mizuho cut its target to $13 from $14 on Tuesday — maintaining Neutral — while B of A Securities actually raised its Underperform target to $11 from $10, a move that reads more as marking-to-market on the selloff than genuine conviction. The analyst recommendation divergence factor scores in the 95th percentile, a reflection of how polarised the view is rather than strength. The bull case centres on 2026 MDI capacity additions, cost actions, and recovery in construction and automotive end markets. Bears cite persistent EBITDA estimate cuts — with FY26 now projected around $345M — and structural oversupply in global polyurethanes amplified by Asian product competition. The EV/EBITDA multiple has compressed to roughly 10x, and price-to-book has fallen to 0.73. Value is the lone bright spot in factor scoring, ranking near the top of the universe on that dimension — consistent with the note from last week that the $11-handle was attracting value-oriented call buyers.
T. Rowe Price added a near-full position of 7.96 million shares in Q1 — the most notable institutional move in the holder data — and Goldman Sachs added 2.36 million shares in the same period. Both moves predate the latest leg of the selloff, so it's an open question whether those positions have since been trimmed; reporting lags mean the current institutional picture may look different from what the Q1 filings show.
The next earnings release on July 30 is the fulcrum. The most recent prior print (April 30) produced a 10% one-day gain and an 11% five-day gain — a reminder that expectations can get washed out enough for a beat even in a down-trending name. With availability loose, the short position structurally large but tactically easing, and options still call-skewed near a 52-week low in the stock, the July 30 print is less about whether demand recovers and more about whether Q2 MDI pricing held firm enough to stop the EBITDA estimate cuts.
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