IMAX heads into its July 24 earnings with short sellers adding positions on the week even as options traders signal less bearishness than the stock has seen in months.
Short interest is the headline tension this week. At nearly 12% of the free float — 6.4 million shares — IMAX carries a meaningfully elevated short position for a specialty exhibitor. It rose roughly 2.8% on the week, the fourth consecutive week of modest rebuilding after dipping to a recent trough in mid-June. That accumulation is worth noting: it is happening as the stock has fallen 6% on the week to $37.48, more than double the decline of closest US peer CNK, which fell around 10%. The borrow market, however, tells a less aggressive story. Cost to borrow is just 0.53% — effectively zero friction — and availability is wide open at 229%, meaning there are more than two shares available to borrow for every share already short. The lending pool shows no signs of stress; this is a crowded structural bet, not an imminent squeeze candidate.
Options positioning has flipped in a notable direction. The put/call ratio fell to 1.58, well below its 20-day average of 2.13 and almost 1.4 standard deviations lighter on the defensive side. That is the least bearish options read on IMAX in several months, with the PCR having peaked near 3.5 in mid-June. Call demand has been rising relative to puts over the past two weeks, even as the stock has softened — a divergence from the prior hedging posture that makes the setup ahead of earnings more ambiguous than the price action alone suggests.
The Street is broadly constructive, though conviction varies. Macquarie's Chad Beynon raised his target to $48 from $46 this morning, reiterating Outperform — a timely pre-earnings nudge from the most active analyst on the name. The mean target of $47.64 implies roughly 27% upside from current levels, which at a $37.48 price and $24.5x trailing PE looks like reasonable headroom rather than heroic multiple expansion. Goldman Sachs stays Neutral with a $41 target, the outlier in a consensus that is otherwise uniformly positive. The bull case rests on premium format pricing power, a growing international slate, and an EBITDA margin trajectory toward 50% by 2028. Bears point to licensing fee concentration and the volatility of box office cycles — a risk that feels live given that the stock has given back nearly 4% over the past month despite generally supportive industry data. GIC Private Limited entered the register with a fresh 5.2% stake as of early May, adding to a tight institutional structure where the top holder, Kevin Douglas, controls nearly 14% of shares.
The ORTEX short score of 66.6 ranks this stock in the bottom 7th percentile for short score rank, meaning short positioning is elevated relative to most names in the universe. But with days-to-cover at 7.3 and availability loose, that elevated short interest is better described as persistent skepticism than acute pressure. The prior earnings print — June 10 — produced a 5% one-day gain and a 10% five-day gain, the reverse of the April 30 print, which went the other way by roughly 2% and 4%. Two prints, two opposing outcomes: the stock has shown it can move sharply in either direction on results.
The July 24 print therefore sets up as the clearest near-term test of whether the rebuilding short position and the constructive analyst consensus can coexist — with options traders having quietly shifted their stance toward less downside protection just as both camps arrive at their most defined positions.
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