MEI reports today with short sellers sitting on their largest position in six weeks — yet the lending market continues to offer no resistance whatsoever.
Short interest has reached 8.9% of the free float, a level consistent with the previous article published yesterday. That figure is up 21% week-on-week and 35% over the past month, continuing the aggressive rebuild documented since late July. The speed of accumulation is the standout: from roughly 2.3 million shares in late July to 3.1 million by September 1. Yet the borrow market remains strikingly uncongested. Availability runs at 756% — more than seven shares available to lend for every one currently borrowed — and the cost to borrow holds at just 0.59%. New shorts face no friction at all. That combination makes this look like a conviction-driven directional bet, not a crowded trade under pressure.
Options traders, by contrast, lean the other way. The put/call ratio has eased to 0.35, slightly below its 20-day average and near the bottom half of its 52-week range. The z-score is just -0.26 — barely a whisker from neutral. Call flow is outpacing puts, consistent with the stock's 29% gain over the past month and the 6% rise just this week. The divergence between rising short interest and call-skewed options flow is the clearest tension in the data heading into the print.
The analyst picture has tightened around the stock since June. Barrington Research upgraded to Outperform with a $25 target, while Sidoti moved the other way, cutting to Neutral. Baird remains on the sidelines at Neutral, though it doubled its target to $16 in late June after the stock's move. With MEI now at $18.10, it trades above Baird's $16 and Sidoti's $17 target, but below Barrington's $25 — leaving the one Outperform on the register as the only real upside case from current levels. The consensus mean target of $22 implies roughly 22% upside, though the thin coverage base of essentially one active Buy makes that figure fragile. The earnings history adds one more data point worth noting: the June 2026 print produced a one-day move of 46%, an extraordinary reaction that likely reset expectations and contributed to the subsequent short build. The most recent prior event in July saw a more modest +1.8% on the day, fading to -1.2% over five sessions.
The print will test whether the operational turnaround story — which has driven a 174% year-to-date rally — has genuine earnings power to show, or whether the short sellers piling in ahead of today's release have correctly identified a stock that has run well ahead of its fundamentals.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open MEI 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.
