HBM enters the week nursing a 12% loss — one of the sharpest pullbacks in what had been a standout 2026 run for the Canadian copper miner.
The selloff is not an HBM-specific story. Across the TSX copper complex, the damage this week has been broad and severe. Closest peers CS and LUN each fell roughly 15% and 14% respectively. NGEX dropped 14%, and ERO lost more than 13%. HBM's 12% decline actually makes it a relative outperformer within the group — a grim distinction when nearly every correlated name is down double digits. The week's selling appears macro-driven rather than company-specific, hitting base metals producers in unison.
The lending market tells a story of retreating conviction, not building pressure. Borrow availability for HBM has ballooned to roughly 7,350% — meaning there are nearly 194 million shares available to lend against just 7.2 million currently borrowed. That availability reading has more than tripled in one week, up from around 2,300% a fortnight ago when shorts had a heavier footprint. Short interest itself collapsed over the past month, falling 38% to just 1.8% of the free float. Cost to borrow remains negligible at under 0.8%, confirming this is an easy, cheap borrow — but one that almost nobody wants. The ORTEX short score sits at a benign 29, well off the higher readings from early September when utilisation was meaningfully tighter. The direction of travel here is clear: shorts have been covering, not building, through this decline.
The institutional register shows some churn worth noting. FIL Limited — the parent of Fidelity International — trimmed its stake from 8.4% to 6.3%, as disclosed in an August 13G/A amendment. GMT Capital also slipped below 5% from 5.5%, per a filing in August. Neither is a 13D activist situation; both filings are passive disclosures around the 5% threshold and holders dropping below that level may not file again. Still, the combined message from the register is one of position reduction, not accumulation, among larger passive holders. On the buy side, Mirae Asset added over 2.1 million shares and Mackenzie Financial added 2.3 million, providing some offset. As of the most recent institutional data, 242 holders are on the register.
Valuation multiples have compressed with the share price. The P/E has pulled back by roughly two turns on the week to 13.9x, and EV/EBITDA now sits at 6.4x — both down meaningfully from a month ago. The price-to-book of 1.77x reflects the stock's retreat from what had been an extended run. Analyst data in the system is too stale to reference with confidence. The ORTEX factor scores paint a mixed picture: the dividend score ranks in the 98th percentile, though the dividend history in the data is dated; the short score rank at 74 reflects a stock where shorts remain relatively elevated as a factor, even as the absolute short interest is modest. EV/EBIT ranks near the 40th percentile, suggesting the market is not ascribing a deep-value premium yet despite the pullback.
Q3 earnings are due 29 October. The two most recent prints produced sharply contrasting reactions — a flat open then a 5.7% five-day decline after the August report, and a 3.5% one-day gain that compounded into an 18% five-day rally after the July print. Whether the sector-wide macro pressure that drove this week's losses has eased by then is the framing question that will shape how the next print lands.
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