HEPS Heads Into Earnings With Borrow Easing and Bulls Absent

D-Market Elektronik HEPS reports after the close today, with the borrow market telling a notably more relaxed story than it did just weeks ago.

The clearest shift in the lending market is how sharply conditions have loosened into this print. Availability has doubled over the past week, climbing to roughly 79% — meaning nearly four shares remain available to borrow for every five already lent out. That compares to a reading as low as 25% in late July, when the borrow market was genuinely tight. Cost to borrow has fallen by a third over the same period, dropping to just 0.91%. Both moves suggest short sellers are retreating rather than pressing new positions ahead of the release, consistent with a 7.8% decline in shares short over the past week. The ORTEX short score, at 52.3, is broadly neutral and has drifted lower since late July.

Options positioning reinforces the same read. Call volume is running well above put volume, with the put/call ratio at 0.39 — marginally above its 20-day average of 0.34, but well within normal range and far from the defensive extremes the stock has seen in the past year. Neither the options market nor the lending market suggests unusual fear ahead of the print.

The bull-versus-bear debate on HEPS is harder to frame with current analyst data. The most recent analyst action on record came from JP Morgan in November 2025, when the firm downgraded to Neutral and cut its target to $3.07. Earlier initiations from Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and Morgan Stanley at targets between $15 and $26 date from the 2021 IPO and carry no weight in the current context. The mean consensus price target of $156 almost certainly reflects stale data or a currency conversion issue relative to the $2.92 share price, and should be disregarded. What the factor scores do show is strong near-term EPS momentum — ranked in the 91st percentile on a 30-day basis — though the company remains loss-making, with a negative earnings yield and negative book value flagging ongoing profitability pressure.

Ownership is highly concentrated. Kaspi.kz holds 87% of shares, leaving a thin free float. That structural reality amplifies any price movement around the print, even on modest volume. The stock's last earnings reaction, in May, saw a 2.6% decline on the day followed by a recovery of similar magnitude over five days — a muted pattern that may reflect how illiquid the float genuinely is.

The earnings release will test whether HEPS's top-line growth trajectory — the company scored in the 73rd percentile on growth metrics as recently as June — is materialising fast enough to narrow the path to profitability, at a moment when short pressure has eased but no meaningful institutional sponsorship has stepped in to fill the vacuum.