BRKM5 is up nearly 8% on the week and has added 8% over the past month — a sharp recovery for a stock that spent much of 2026 under heavy pressure — yet the lending market and short positioning data that once made this name so interesting have gone largely dark.
The most striking feature of Braskem's current setup is the collapse in borrowing costs from their mid-year peak. Cost to borrow reached as high as 49% in mid-March and was still running above 23% in late July — levels that implied intense short-side demand and a very uncomfortable borrow for anyone already short. By mid-August, that rate had fallen back to just over 6%, a decline of nearly 75% over the week of August 18 alone. That tells a clear story: the wave of short-side pressure that characterised the first half of the year has materially eased. It is worth noting the borrow data is now nearly a month old, so the precise current level is uncertain — but the direction of travel through August was unmistakably toward normalisation. Availability data is staler still, last captured in November 2025, and carries no current read on how tight the lending pool actually is today.
The ORTEX short score sits at 36.9, almost unchanged over the past ten days — a remarkably flat reading that suggests no new signal is emerging from the positioning community. The score ticked up slightly from 34.1 at the start of September, but has since plateaued. The days-to-cover rank is striking: at the 95th percentile, it implies a relatively large short interest relative to trading volume, meaning any short sellers still in the stock face a slow unwind. Yet the short score rank overall is only in the 33rd percentile, suggesting the aggregate short signal is far from extreme. Those two readings pull in opposite directions, and the flat trend in the score over recent weeks points to a market waiting rather than moving.
On the ownership side, the structure of the register is the dominant feature. Petrobras holds 36% of the shares, and two other concentrated holders — Shine FIP and Kieppe Participações — together account for another 52%. That leaves a thin free float, which amplifies both the price moves and the lending dynamics. Kieppe trimmed its stake by 15.4 million shares in its most recent disclosure, while 140 Summer Partners entered the register with a fresh 2% position as of June 30. Marshall Wace and Point72 both added materially over the same period — Point72 nearly quadrupling its position. The mix of a new long-only entrant and two well-known multi-strategy funds building stakes in the same quarter is worth monitoring, particularly given the stock's depressed absolute price.
The earnings picture adds some useful texture. The most recent result, released in August, produced a 1-day drop of 2.6% and a 5-day decline of just over 5%. The June release went the other way — a gain of 5.2% on the day and 6.2% over five days. That alternating reaction pattern suggests the market is genuinely uncertain about the fundamental trajectory, and individual prints are doing real work in resetting expectations. The next scheduled event is November 12. Analyst consensus data is available but dates to mid-July, making it too stale to quote with confidence — the mean price target then was approximately BRL 10.08 against a current price of BRL 5.34, implying the Street was significantly more optimistic at that point, though that gap needs fresher data to carry weight.
Valuation multiples reflect the ongoing profitability challenge: both PE and price-to-book are deeply negative, consistent with a company still running losses. EV/EBITDA at 7.8x is the metric that matters most right now, and it has edged higher over the past 30 days as the stock price has recovered. The 12-month forward EPS growth factor ranks in the 93rd percentile — a low-base effect after a difficult cycle, rather than a signal of recovered earnings power. EPS momentum over both 30 and 90 days ranks near the bottom of the universe, at the 2nd and 4th percentiles respectively. The setup is recovery-optionality rather than fundamental improvement.
The November 12 earnings date is the next obvious focal point, with the question being whether the cost-to-borrow trajectory and any fresh borrow data in the weeks ahead confirm that short pressure has genuinely unwound — or whether it rebuilds ahead of the print.
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