EchoStar Back at the Table — Now as a Bankruptcy Story

EchoStar returns to the reporting window on August 7, three days after the most consequential print in its recent history — and the question now is not whether the bear thesis was right, but what comes next for a company whose satellite broadband subsidiary is in Chapter 11.

The short position has stabilised since the August 3 shock. Short interest remained at 19.2% of the free float as of July 31, essentially flat on the week at +0.3%, though down sharply from the late-June peak near 38 million shares. The borrow market is loose: availability has expanded to 223%, meaning more than two shares are available to borrow for every one already shorted, and the cost to borrow has dropped to 0.51% — less than a third of what it briefly spiked to in late June. That combination says the lending market has fully absorbed the shock. Bears who wanted out have exited. Those remaining are carrying a low-cost, comfortable position, with no squeeze pressure in sight. The ORTEX short score of 64.3 reflects the still-elevated float percentage rather than any fresh acceleration. Options positioning has edged slightly more defensive — the put/call ratio is at 0.54, just above its 20-day average of 0.51, a z-score of 1.09 that signals mild but not extreme caution.

The stock closed at $85.63 on August 3, down around 16% on the month. The August 3 print itself — a Q2 EPS of $0.14 against a $1.70 estimate, paired with the Hughes Satellite Systems Chapter 11 filing — crystallised the bear case that had been building since the June short-interest peak. The subscriber loss of 241,000 pay TV customers in a single quarter underscored how completely Starlink has disrupted the Hughes broadband business. The spectrum-asset narrative that briefly softened the bear thesis has not prevented the operational collapse it was meant to offset.