JSW — Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa — closed the week at PLN 26.06, up 3.7% on the week, yet the most notable development is not the price recovery but a sharp drop in borrowing costs even as the lending pool remains historically constrained.
The clearest change from last week is in cost to borrow. CTB collapsed 39% across five sessions, from above 10% to 6.27% — the lowest reading in the entire 30-day history tracked here, and a meaningful break below the 8–10% corridor that had held since early June. That move is significant: it is the first time borrow costs have retreated to their early-June starting point. Yet availability tells a more cautious story. At 5.2%, the pool is still extremely tight — roughly nineteen shares lent out for every one free to borrow. The 52-week low of 2.9%, recorded on July 14 and flagged in last week's note, is not far in the rearview mirror. The divergence between a falling CTB and a still-compressed availability pool suggests short sellers are holding existing positions rather than building new ones, but they are not covering either. The ORTEX short score continued its grind higher, reaching 85.4 — a fresh record — up from 84.3 at the time of the previous note and from roughly 73 six months ago. Days-to-cover and utilization ranks both sit in the bottom 3rd percentile of the global universe.
Valuation is where the bulls find their footing, and the numbers are genuinely cheap. The stock trades at a PE of 7.1, down nearly two full turns over the past month, and an EV/EBITDA of 2.5. Price-to-book is below 0.5. EPS momentum ranks in the 100th percentile on both 30-day and 90-day windows — meaning forward estimates have been moving up faster than almost any other name in the screened universe. That is a striking contrast to the bearish structural positioning: the short score is at an all-time high yet forward earnings revisions are among the strongest available. The analyst consensus carries a mean price target of PLN 22.25, which is below the current price of PLN 26.06 — flagging that this data is dated (last updated late May) and should be treated with caution rather than taken at face value.
Ownership is dominated by the Polish state. The State Treasury holds 55.2% of shares, leaving a small free float and concentrating the squeeze dynamic in a thin lending pool. Among institutional holders, BlackRock added roughly 35,000 shares through June 30 and American Century added 57,000 — modest flows but directionally positive for a name where passive and active international funds collectively hold low single-digit percentages. The state anchor means any fundamental re-rating depends heavily on government policy toward Polish coal, not just commodity prices.
The next earnings release is scheduled for August 20. The most recent result, in May, produced a one-day drop of 2.4% followed by an 8.3% rally across the subsequent five sessions — a pattern where initial selling was absorbed and then reversed. Whether that template repeats depends on what Q2 coal volumes and realised prices show, particularly given the EPS momentum that has driven the 100th-percentile revision ranking.
What to watch next: the key tension is whether the CTB decline continues — confirming that short sellers are settling into existing positions — or whether fresh demand for borrows pushes it back toward 10%, which would suggest new shorts entering despite the already near-record tight availability.
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