BMI delivered its Q2 results on July 22 with short sellers holding their ground at 15.2% of the free float — and the question now is whether yesterday's print gives either side enough to move.
Short interest has barely shifted. The 1.1% week-on-week dip brings the position back to roughly where it sat a month ago before a 5% build through June, leaving 4.47 million shares short and the ORTEX short score at 71.1 — elevated, and essentially flat versus the prior week's range of 69-72. The borrow market remains orderly. Availability has actually loosened to 212% from 182% a week ago, meaning there are more than two shares available for every one already lent out. Cost to borrow is negligible at 0.51%, down about 8% over the past month. This is a large, well-established short position, not a panicked or crowded one — shorts have capacity to add, but no apparent urgency to do so. Options tell a similar story: the put/call ratio of 0.97 is fractionally below its 20-day average of 0.99, about 1.4 standard deviations toward the call-heavy end, meaning options traders are incrementally less defensive post-print than they were heading into it.
The analyst picture sharpened materially in the 24 hours surrounding the release. Stifel raised its target from $140 to $170 while keeping a Buy rating — a meaningful 21% lift that signals conviction in the print's quality. That sits well above the current price of $145.87. Barclays, in contrast, nudged its Underweight target down slightly to $109, having already cut aggressively from $136 in April. The consensus mean target of $158.33 implies modest upside from here. The bull case centres on Badger's structural positioning in smart water infrastructure: a recent £100 million UK sewer monitoring contract and a growing high-margin software business back the long-term growth story. Bears point to project-timing lumpiness and concerns about whether the company can sustain its historical growth rate as the smart meter market normalises post-pandemic upgrade cycle. Factor scores add texture: the 12-month forward EPS growth rank is strong at the 81st percentile, but near-term EPS momentum (30-day rank: 20th percentile) and EPS surprise history (36th percentile) look less impressive — the Street expects the longer-run story to deliver, but recent quarters have generated mixed beats.
The insider cluster from April remains the most interesting ownership detail in the data. Chairman and CEO Kenneth Bockhorst led a group of five insiders who all bought in the $113-$122 range on April 21-23, collectively adding around 6,600 shares. Net insider buying over the 90-day window came to roughly $3.95 million worth of stock. Those purchases were made well below today's price, and none of the more recent trading reflects a change of view — the March sells were small and routine. BlackRock remains the largest holder at 17% of shares, with State Street and Geode both adding modestly in the most recent quarter.
The one-day reaction to the print was a 1.6% decline to $145.87, which leaves the stock up 3.1% on the week and 7.7% over the past month — a reasonable response given that the sole prior earnings reaction in the history data showed a 1.9% drop following the Q1 result in April. The pattern, thin as the dataset is, suggests BMI tends to drift slightly lower on the day even when the broader setup is constructive. Whether the Stifel target lift and the absence of any borrow stress is enough to attract fresh longs back toward the $158 consensus — or whether Barclays' $109 target anchors the bear narrative — is the tension worth tracking through the rest of July.
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