IBEX heads into its September 10 earnings print with short sellers quietly rebuilding positions while the stock trades above analyst targets for the first time in years — a tension worth watching closely.
The most notable shift this week is the speed of the short rebuild. Short interest climbed 26% over the past week to reach 2.1% of the free float — still a low absolute level, but the monthly increase of nearly 60% tells a different story. Bears have been adding steadily since late July, when the float-adjusted short position sat closer to 1.3%. Cost to borrow has become more volatile as a result, spiking to 3.5% on August 25 before pulling back to 2.4% — still well above the sub-1% levels that prevailed through most of August. That said, with availability running at over 8,000% of outstanding short interest, the lending pool is essentially unlimited. This is a build in conviction, not a squeeze setup. Options traders aren't piling in either — the put/call ratio at 0.13 sits right at its 20-day average, with a z-score near zero, suggesting no unusual hedging activity ahead of the print.
The Street's position on IBEX is complicated by the age of its coverage. The most recent analyst actions on record date to November 2025, when RBC Capital lifted its target to $40 while keeping a Sector Perform rating. At a current price of $38.25, the stock has effectively caught up with consensus — the mean target is $37.50, leaving virtually no implied upside at the Street's last disclosed view. That gap has closed sharply: a year ago the stock was trading in the low-to-mid $20s, and targets have been ratcheted up repeatedly. The valuation picture reflects this re-rating. The PE multiple has compressed roughly a full turn over the past month, now running at 7.7x — cheap on paper, though the EV/EBITDA of 4.3x suggests the market is already pricing in limited near-term expansion. Factor scores are broadly mid-range, with an EPS surprise rank of 76 — meaning the company has historically beaten estimates comfortably — supporting the bull case heading into September 10.
The activist register adds a wrinkle. PineBridge Global Emerging Markets Partners filed a Schedule 13D, making it a disclosed activist on the stock. Its latest filing from February 2025 shows a position that has fallen to 3.9% from 8.3% previously — a significant reduction. That drawdown is material context: PineBridge was once IBEX's largest disclosed activist stakeholder, and its retreat removes a layer of external pressure for change. As always with 13D/G disclosures, the stake is "as last disclosed" — the position may have changed further since February without a filing obligation once below the 5% threshold.
The institutional picture shows BlackRock adding 75,728 shares in its most recent reported quarter, and Vanguard Capital Management entering with a 360,044-share position — both additions in a period when the stock was already running. Columbia Management added 37,238 shares. These are constructive signals, though the largest single disclosed holder, TRG Pakistan Limited at 12.9% of shares, has shown no change in position since October 2025.
The earnings history amplifies the stakes. The last two prints both delivered a day-one move of roughly 15% to the upside, with five-day follow-through of around 7%. IBEX has consistently surprised on the positive side, ranking in the 76th percentile on EPS surprise. With the stock sitting fractionally above the analyst consensus target and shorts having added aggressively over the past month, the September 10 print becomes the clearest near-term test of whether those bears have the fundamentals on their side or whether IBEX's growth acceleration — 18.2% revenue growth, its fastest clip in 11 quarters — has further room to run.
What to watch: whether the short rebuild continues in the days ahead of the print, and how the stock moves relative to the 15% gap-up pattern from the prior two quarters.
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