JSW — Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa — has now gained 16% in a single week and 42% over the past month, yet the short position that fuelled the squeeze remains stubbornly intact, setting up a second earnings test on September 15 with the stock at PLN 37.0.
The most striking shift this week is not the price move but the reversal in borrow conditions. Availability has climbed to 38.4% from a trough of roughly 4.4% on August 10 — nearly a ninefold expansion in four weeks — and has risen a further 46% week-on-week as shorts continue returning borrowed shares. That is an unambiguous trend toward normalisation, and cost to borrow has followed: it has fallen 32% on the week to 5.8%, less than half its mid-August peak above 10%. Yet the context still matters. Availability at 38.4% remains well below the 200% threshold that marks a normal lending market, meaning the borrow pool is still tight relative to the short position outstanding. The ORTEX short score is 86.1 — barely off the 86.9 reading that prevailed when the stock was 30% lower. That persistence is the key tension: the mechanics of the squeeze are easing, but the underlying bear thesis has not been abandoned.
The residual short positioning is significant. The ORTEX short score has barely moved in ten days, sitting in a narrow band between 86.1 and 87.1 throughout the rally. The 52-week availability low was 2.9%, reached during the most acute phase of the squeeze; current availability at 38.4% represents meaningful relief but still leaves roughly one share available for every 2.6 already borrowed. The shorts who remain are paying 5.8% to stay in the trade — down from the peak, but still elevated. The direction of availability is clearly improving for remaining bears; the question is whether the stock's continued advance forces further capitulation before the next earnings print.
Valuation gives the bulls a defensible argument even after the rally. The price-to-earnings multiple is running at 6.7x and price-to-book at 0.6x, with both expanding modestly on the week and more substantially over the past month as the stock re-rated. EV/EBITDA is 2.7x, having compressed slightly as earnings estimates held firm. The factor picture is mixed: the 30-day EPS momentum score ranks in the 93rd percentile, a strong signal that estimates have been moving higher in the near term. The 90-day reading, however, scores at zero — a reminder that the earnings revision cycle has been volatile. The analyst consensus remains a hold, with a mean target of PLN 23.0 against a current price of PLN 37.0. That gap is large enough to flag: the target data is dated to mid-August and may not have caught up with the post-earnings re-rating, but it does suggest the Street has not yet blessed the new price level.
Institutional ownership adds an important structural note. The Polish State Treasury holds 55% of shares — a stake that does not trade and effectively concentrates the free float. Norges Bank Investment Management entered with a fresh position as of end-June, and Vanguard and BlackRock both added modestly in July. These flows are small in absolute terms but signal continued international index-tracking interest in the name.
The September 15 earnings event is the next obvious catalyst: the prior print on September 3 produced a 7.2% single-day gain, and the May release saw an initial 2.4% drop followed by an 8.3% five-day recovery. With availability still tight by historical standards and the short score anchored above 86, the degree to which remaining bears choose to cover ahead of — or after — the next result is what will determine whether this squeeze has a second leg or begins to fully deflate.
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