SQM heads into the final stretch before its August earnings with a striking divergence: shorts have quietly rebuilt positions over the past month while the lending market remains one of the most relaxed in the sector.
The most notable event this week came from the Street. Goldman Sachs raised its price target on SQM from $64 to $82 — a 28% lift — while holding its Neutral rating, a signal that the bank sees the risk/reward improving without yet turning constructive on the name. That move lands against a Deutsche Bank trim, from $105 to $98, which keeps a Buy rating intact. The pattern across the broader analyst community is bullish direction but declining conviction at the top end: JP Morgan holds Overweight with a $100 target, Scotiabank sits at $105, and the mean consensus target of $85.73 sits roughly 17% above the current price of $72.95. BofA remains the bear in the room, maintaining Underperform with a $53 target — the widest spread in the group. The stock has fallen 13% over the past month, yet the majority of the Street is not cutting ratings, which suggests the sell-off is being treated as valuation compression rather than a fundamental break.
What makes SQM's setup genuinely interesting is that short interest has risen sharply — up 22% over the past week and 31% over the past month — yet the borrowing market tells a completely different story. Estimated shares short now stand around 2.18 million, a meaningful jump from the ~1.79 million seen in early July. But borrow cost is near its 30-day low at just 0.26%, and availability is effectively unlimited: the ORTEX availability reading has been pegged at or near its maximum for most of the past two weeks. That combination — rising shorts, near-zero borrow cost, and abundant supply — tells you these are not distressed or crowded short positions. Bears are adding exposure cheaply and easily, which is very different from a setup where borrow pressure amplifies the risk. The ORTEX short score of 29.6 reflects a relatively low squeeze risk at current levels.
Options positioning has also eased meaningfully. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.90 from readings above 1.10 that dominated through late June and into early July — a shift away from the defensive hedging that was prevalent when the stock was still falling hard. The PCR sits modestly below its 20-day average of 0.97, a slight z-score of -0.41, suggesting that options traders are no longer pressing for downside protection with the same urgency they showed last month. The 52-week range for the PCR runs from 0.21 to 1.42, so the current reading sits in the middle of historical experience — neutral, not alarmed.
Factor scores add context to the bulls' case. EPS momentum ranks in the 89th percentile on a 30-day basis and 86th on 90-day, pointing to consistent upward estimate revisions. The dividend score sits at the 93rd percentile, a reminder that SQM still returns meaningful cash — the most recent dividend was $0.66 per share in May. The bear case, as it has been all year, centres on lithium pricing: 2026 EBITDA guidance was cut to $2 billion, and the concern is that stagnant lithium prices could erode the cash cushion further before the cycle turns. The P/E has compressed to around 11.9x and EV/EBITDA to 7.1x, both down materially over the past 30 days, which frames the valuation argument more attractively than it has been in some time — but the market is clearly waiting for a pricing signal before re-rating in earnest.
Closest US peer ALB moved almost identically on the day — up 2.4% versus SQM's 1.4% daily gain — but is off just 0.2% on the week, outperforming SQM's 0.6% weekly decline. The next earnings print on August 19 is where the two core questions converge: whether lithium pricing has stabilised enough to underpin the consensus EBITDA estimates, and whether the Goldman target raise signals the beginning of a broader analyst re-rating or simply a catch-up to fair value at a lower price.
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