UAMY dropped 25% on its earnings print last week. Five days later, short interest has climbed back to 24% of the free float — and options traders are buying more calls.
The contradiction is the story. The borrow market has had zero availability for the better part of two months. New shorts are still finding shares to borrow. Yet the put/call ratio just hit 0.257, sitting 2.3 standard deviations above its 20-day mean. Both sides are pressing their bets simultaneously.
The put/call ratio of 0.257 is near its 52-week low of 0.124 on the bullish end of the range. The 52-week high was 0.732. Call buyers are not hedging — they're positioning for upside. HC Wainwright maintained its Buy rating after earnings last week, cutting the target from $11.75 to $9.25. The stock trades at $5.51. That gap is wide enough to matter. Antimony spot prices have moved from $5.96 to $28.72 per pound over the past year. Management reaffirmed a $125 million revenue target for 2026. The bull case rests on those numbers.
Short interest rose 10.1% over the past week to 24.0% of the free float. That is 33.6 million shares. The earnings print delivered a 25% single-day decline. FINRA's fortnightly data puts days-to-cover at 6.16. The company posted a $3.9 million net loss, weighed down by share-based compensation. EPS momentum factor scores sit at the 1st and 2nd percentiles over 30 and 90 days respectively — the weakest possible readings. Shorts added aggressively into the post-earnings flush, and they are still adding now.
Availability has been at 0% since late June with only rare exceptions. Every share in the lending pool is currently lent out. This condition has persisted for nearly eight weeks. Cost to borrow sits at 1.73% — unchanged in direction, modest in absolute terms. The ORTEX short score is 73.0, near the top of its recent range, ranking in the 1st percentile for both short score and utilization rank among peers. Van Eck added over 10 million shares last month. BlackRock added 1.46 million. State Street added 3.3 million.
Institutions are buying. Shorts are adding. Call buyers are paying up. The borrow market is fully drawn. Something has to give.
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