BBD reports today with positioning data that looks materially different from the picture heading into the August 5 release — short sellers have been unwinding, not building, and the borrow market remains wide open.
The dominant story in the data is the sharp pullback in short interest. Shares short have fallen more than 57% over the past month, dropping from roughly 31 million to 13.4 million. The week-on-week decline alone is 23%. That unwinding is consistent with the prior earnings preview's observation that bears were already exiting in late July. Cost to borrow reflects the same easing pressure — it ticked up 34% on the week but remains negligible at 0.37%, a level that signals no meaningful conviction behind any residual short position. Availability is essentially unconstrained, with the lending pool more than 90 times the size of shares currently borrowed. Positioning looks cleared-out rather than charged.
Options tell a modestly different story. Put/call ratio has crept to 0.92, running about 1.6 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.83 — the same defensive drift flagged ahead of the August 5 print. That hedging tone has persisted through the week without reversing. It is not at an extreme, but the direction has been consistent: each of the past five sessions has seen a PCR above 0.91, compared to readings comfortably below 0.82 through most of July. The stock has lost just under 1% on the week and 0.3% in the prior session, closing at $3.48.
Analyst coverage is thin and largely stale. The consensus sits at hold across three firms, with the most recent changes dating back more than a year. The valuation case has some ballast: price-to-earnings runs near 6.7x and price-to-book at 1.03x, both undemanding for a bank of Bradesco's scale. The dividend score ranks in the 85th percentile. Bulls point to Brazil's second-largest private lender trading at a single-digit multiple with improving forward earnings growth — forward EPS growth has climbed from negative territory in late 2025 to above 20% now. Bears focus on credit quality headwinds and a demand slowdown, with the Benzinga bear case citing a book-to-bill ratio below 1x as a sign new business is not replenishing revenue at pace.
Today's print is less about whether the short-seller retreat was warranted and more about whether forward earnings guidance can justify a re-rating from the current compressed multiple.
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