Super Hi International Holding Ltd. heads into the week with its lending market loosening at pace — short sellers are covering, cost to borrow has halved over the past month, and availability is opening up, even as the ORTEX short score remains elevated.
The most interesting development is the pace at which short interest has unwound. Short positions have fallen roughly 16% over the past month, from around 12.8 million shares to just over 10.3 million — pulling the SI level down to 1.6% of free float. That is a low reading in absolute terms, but the directional shift is notable: shorts have been exiting consistently since mid-July, with a particularly sharp step-down around August 20 when daily estimates dropped from ~11.1 million to ~10.3 million shares overnight. The pace of that unwind points to deliberate covering rather than a gradual drift.
The borrow market tells a complementary story. Cost to borrow has fallen from above 11% in late July to 4.7% now — a drop of more than half in four weeks. Availability has expanded too, rising from around 15% in mid-August to nearly 34% today, though it remains in tight territory relative to a loose market. Context matters here: the 52-week low on availability was 0.6%, meaning the stock has seen genuinely severe squeeze conditions in the past year. The current 34% reading is a significant easing from those extremes, even if the borrow market is far from free. Short score has drifted slightly lower this week to 68.7, after touching 69.4 on August 12 — a mild softening that aligns with the broader short covering trend.
The Street picture on Super Hi is thin. Analyst data is stale — the only available price target is more than two years old and does not reflect current trading, so it has been set aside. What the valuation multiples do show is a modestly priced business: EV/EBITDA runs at 3.1x, a reading that has compressed slightly over the past month. The P/E sits around 17.4x, which has expanded a touch on a 30-day view. The forward EPS growth factor score is striking — ranked in the 98th percentile of the universe on 12-month forward EPS year-on-year increase. EPS momentum at 90 days ranks in the 81st percentile. Against that, the EPS surprise score is weak at the 13th percentile, suggesting the market has been sceptical about delivery. The short score rank of 7 and days-to-cover rank of 2 flag this as a stock where the short-side data remains unusually prominent relative to the broader universe, even as the headline SI level is low.
Ownership is concentrated. UBS Asset Management holds 52.6% of shares, which sharply constrains the effective float. Insider data in the snapshot is stale — the most recent trades on record date from late 2024, so no current signal can be drawn from that source. Among peers, Shenzhen-listed 000888 rose 2.5% on the week while 9658 fell 2.0%, and SEHK-listed 69 dropped a similar 2.1% — suggesting the weakness is partly sector-wide rather than stock-specific.
Earnings land on November 25. Between now and then, the key variable is whether the borrow market stabilises at these looser levels or tightens again — the stock's history of touching near-zero availability shows how quickly conditions can reverse — and whether the gap between the elevated forward EPS growth rank and the weak surprise score begins to close.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open 9658 on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
