MOS heads into its August 5 earnings report with short sellers meaningfully more active than a month ago, even as the borrow market remains far from stressed.
Short interest is the standout signal here. Bears have added steadily — SI % of FF has climbed to 9.7% of the free float, up nearly 23% over the past month. The pace accelerated last week, with shares short rising almost 5%. At nearly 30.8 million shares short, this is a genuine positioning story, not a marginal move. Yet the borrow market tells a very different story: availability is loose, running near 673% — meaning there are roughly six shares available to borrow for every one already lent out. Cost to borrow is negligible at 0.40%, and has eased 8% over the past week. Bears are not scrambling for stock; they are entering positions with ample capacity and no squeeze pressure. Options positioning reinforces the neutral-to-modestly-bullish lean from the rest of the market — the put/call ratio sits at 0.62, barely a whisker above its 20-day average and well within its normal range. The stock itself recovered 4.1% on Tuesday but remains slightly negative on the week, trading at $22.71.
The bull and bear divide on Mosaic is fundamentally about which part of the operational picture wins out. Bulls point to volume recovery — potash sales projected at 9.1 million tonnes in 2026, phosphate reliability upgrades, and ongoing Esterhazy mine expansion as the ingredients for a multi-year margin improvement story. The forward EPS trajectory has seen dramatic upward revision, with 12-month forward EPS year-on-year growth ranking in the 90th percentile of the universe. On valuation, the stock trades at just 0.58x book and an EV/EBITDA below 7x, which screens cheaply. The consensus mean target of $27.45 implies roughly 21% upside from current levels. Morgan Stanley cut its target to $26 at end of June while maintaining Equal-Weight — a signal of moderated, not abandoned, conviction. Rothschild initiated at Buy with a $30 target around the same time, and Freedom Broker upgraded from Sell to Buy in mid-June. The direction of travel from initiations is constructive. Bears, however, focus on the structural drag from Brazil — where high sulfur costs and fertilizer market weakness have repeatedly pressured EBITDA — and on the history of missed production run-rates at Riverview and Bartow. The EPS surprise score ranks in just the 2nd percentile, a stark reminder that Mosaic has consistently disappointed relative to expectations.
T. Rowe Price stands out on the institutional side, adding nearly 4 million shares in the most recent reported quarter to bring their holding to 5.5 million shares — a meaningful conviction add from a bellwether active manager. BNY Asset Management also added 1.5 million shares. The broader holder base is anchored by index names at the top, but the active-money flow has been net positive heading into the print.
Today's report is a direct test of whether the operational recovery in phosphate and the potash volume ramp are translating into numbers that justify the gap between where the stock trades and where the Street thinks it should be.
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