The story on NCH2 has not changed in weeks — but the numbers keep moving in the same direction, and the ORTEX short score has now crossed 97 for the first time.
The composite short score reached 97.0 on August 18, up from 96.2 when the last note was filed on August 16 and from 94.0 at the start of the month. Every single session in the tracked history has produced a higher reading than the one before it. That relentless drift is not noise — it reflects a borrow market that has been running near maximum stress since late July, with both the utilization rank and the days-to-cover rank anchored at the bottom percentile of the entire ORTEX universe. The score has now risen more than five points in ten sessions without a single reversal.
The lending picture is where the real texture sits. Availability has ticked slightly higher from the lows — roughly 2.2% of short interest now has shares to borrow, up from a 52-week floor of 0.01% and a shade above the 1.3–1.4% range that persisted through most of August. That is still fewer than one share available for every 45 already lent out. Cost to borrow has come off its most extreme readings — it printed at 142% on August 18, down from 206% on August 14 and a peak near 340% in late July — but that pullback does not signal relief. The CTB has oscillated between 50% and 340% on a near-daily basis for six weeks. A lending pool with this little depth does not produce smooth price discovery; it produces spikes when any incremental demand hits thin supply. The borrow market remains essentially locked.
The stock itself has given back some of the ground it gained around earnings. NCH2 closed at €7.80 on August 18, down 3% on the week and just below where it traded before the August 11 results. The earnings reaction was muted — a 1.2% decline on the day — which is notable context: six weeks of extreme borrow stress and a short score in the 97th percentile have not produced a short squeeze. The stock has drifted, not spiked. That divergence between positioning extremity and price behaviour is the defining tension on this name right now. Peers have also had a weak week — SCYR fell 1.9%, MTHH dropped 2.2%, and AMRC shed more than 10% on the day — so NCH2's decline is not isolated sector noise.
On the Street, the analyst picture is thin but directionally positive. Four buy ratings are on record, with a consensus price target near €10.50 — implying roughly 35% upside from current levels. No recent target changes are in the data. The factor score context is stark: the short score rank sits at zero (bottom of the universe), the days-to-cover rank at one, while the 30-day EPS momentum score ranks in the 99th percentile — a sharp acceleration from a low base. The analyst recommendation differential score ranks at 92, suggesting the buy consensus is more concentrated than most stocks in the universe carry. The company is structurally loss-making, with a price-to-book near 1.4x the only valuation anchor that functions in the absence of positive earnings.
Ownership is dominated by the two founding strategic holders — Thyssenkrupp Projekt 1 GmbH at 50.2% and Federico De Nora S.P.A. at 25.9% — which together control more than three-quarters of the register. The Saudi Public Investment Fund holds another 6%. That concentration leaves a very thin tradeable float, which is precisely why the borrow pool has no room to breathe and why even modest short demand produces extreme rate volatility. Van Eck trimmed 58,000 shares as of July 31 and BlackRock cut 5,300 — small moves, but both heading in the same direction.
The next scheduled catalyst is the December 16 earnings event. Between now and then, the metric worth tracking is whether the ORTEX short score breaks further above 97 or finds a ceiling — and whether cost to borrow stabilises at current elevated levels or resumes the violent swings that have characterised the lending pool since late July.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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