PLS Group Limited heads into its August 23 full-year results with short sellers making a deliberate, month-long bet against a stock that has simultaneously recovered 15% over the past month to AUD 4.83.
Short interest is the headline story heading into this print. Bears have been consistently adding exposure since late July — short interest has climbed more than 14% over the past month to 10.7% of free float, a reading that ranks in the 1st percentile of the ORTEX universe. Days to cover has stretched to 11.6, meaning it would take nearly two-and-a-half weeks of average volume for shorts to unwind. The ORTEX short score has drifted steadily higher through August, reaching 73.2 on August 19 — its highest point in the tracked window. That combination of high float short, rising conviction, and extended days-to-cover puts shorts firmly in charge of the narrative heading in.
The lending market is not sounding any alarm for a near-term squeeze, however. Availability — roughly 192% relative to current short interest — is well within normal territory, meaning plenty of shares remain available for new bearish bets. Cost to borrow has eased 15% over the past week to just 1.12%, showing no sign of tightening. The 52-week low on availability was 9.1%, a level that would signal genuine squeeze pressure; the current reading is a long way from that. Bears face no immediate mechanical constraint in maintaining their positions.
The debate between bulls and bears is essentially a commodity narrative. The analyst consensus price target of AUD 5.14 sits about 6% above the current price, and forward earnings momentum is unusually strong — the 90-day EPS momentum factor ranks in the 94th percentile. Earnings per share estimates have been revised sharply higher over the year, with the 12-month forward EPS growth factor ranking in the 77th percentile. Bulls are anchoring on a lithium recovery thesis: P/E has expanded to 16.3x over the past month, price-to-book to 2.7x, reflecting a market beginning to price in better times ahead. Bears, however, can point to an EPS surprise factor that ranks only in the 17th percentile — PLS has a weak track record of meeting expectations — alongside quality metrics that remain soft. The CEO sold roughly AUD 2.9 million worth of stock in late May, the only insider trade of scale in the past 90 days, which tempers the bullish insider picture despite the net 90-day insider position being modestly positive due to a small non-executive buy in June.
On the institutional side, the two most active recent movers cut in opposite directions. BlackRock added almost 96 million shares by end of July, a sizeable conviction increase. Morgan Stanley trimmed 36.6 million shares over the same period. Australian Super remains the dominant holder at nearly 12% and reported no change. Past earnings prints have been largely positive — the four most recent events produced first-day moves ranging from -2.5% to +4.4%, with five-day drift consistently higher, between +1.7% and +8.1%. The lithium sector peer group has been weak: LTR fell 7.6% on the week while LKE dropped 9.6%, suggesting sector headwinds that PLS's 15% monthly recovery has so far resisted.
The annual results will test whether a recovering lithium price and upgraded forward earnings estimates are real enough to justify the recent re-rating — or whether short sellers, now at their most committed level in months, have been right to fade the bounce.
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