MIR arrives at its Q2 earnings print with one of the starkest splits in positioning data: short sellers are deeply dug in, yet options traders are making one of the most aggressive upside bets of the past year.
The options signal has intensified since the last preview two days ago. The put/call ratio has dropped further to 0.052 — the lowest reading in 52 weeks, and nearly 2.7 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.086. That is an extraordinary skew toward calls. It sits against a stock that has fallen 15% over the past month to $14.84, with a 12% slide in the last week alone. Options traders are not hedging a winner; they are making a directional bet into a print on a stock that has been under sustained pressure.
Short interest remains unchanged in character from the prior article: 15.3% of the free float, roughly 35 million shares short, with days to cover near ten. The position has grown about 5.7% over the past month. Critically, the borrow market still shows no stress — cost to borrow is a negligible 0.48%, and availability is ample at 272%, meaning lenders hold nearly three shares available for every one already out on loan. Shorts are not being squeezed; they added into the stock's decline and are holding comfortably. The ORTEX short score has nudged up to 70.1, placing MIR in the bottom few percentiles of the universe on short interest and days-to-cover ranks.
The analyst community has been moving in one direction only. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup both trimmed targets to $25 and $24 respectively in the past two days, while maintaining Buy ratings. JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and B. Riley have also cut targets in recent weeks — a consensus of diminishing expectations, not conviction reversals. The mean target still sits at $24.80, implying roughly 67% upside from the current price, which reflects how far the stock has fallen rather than renewed optimism. Bulls point to 13% year-over-year EBITDA growth and nuclear power segment strength as the fundamental anchor. Bears focus on the backlog: at $814 million as of Q1 2025, it showed only marginal quarter-on-quarter growth and a 3.4% year-on-year decline — a leading indicator that has not convincingly turned. The EPS surprise factor score ranks in the 10th percentile, meaning the company has a weak history of beating estimates.
The earnings history adds another layer of caution. The two most recent prints produced single-day declines of roughly 12% and 14% respectively. The May 2026 print was the exception, with a near-flat reaction — but it was followed by a 5% drift lower over the subsequent five days. The print tonight will test whether the call-heavy options positioning reflects genuine conviction that the backlog has stabilised, or simply a short-dated bet on a relief rally in a stock that the market has been repricing sharply lower.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open MIR on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
