UAMY heads into October with short sellers dug in, insiders buying into the dip, and the borrow market barely open.
The standout story this week is how crowded the short side remains even as the stock slides. UAMY has lost nearly 13% over the past week and almost 14% over the past month, closing Tuesday at $4.18. Short interest has climbed throughout that decline, reaching 24.1% of the free float, up roughly 5% on the week. That is a meaningful and sustained bear position for a small-cap miner: FINRA's fortnightly data puts days-to-cover at 5.6, meaning shorts would need more than a full trading week to unwind at normal volume. The short score from ORTEX ranks in the first percentile of the universe, and days-to-cover ranks in the sixth. By both measures, this is among the most heavily shorted names in the market right now.
The borrow picture reinforces that read. Availability has been close to zero for most of the past six weeks, touching absolute zero on multiple days in August before nudging up to just 2% late this week. For most of September the lending pool was effectively empty: every share available was already lent out. Cost to borrow has held around 1.8 to 2%, not extreme in dollar terms, but availability this tight is the real constraint. Anyone trying to establish a new short position faces almost no supply. Options positioning is noticeably bullish by comparison: the put/call ratio at 0.30 is slightly below its 20-day average and well beneath its 52-week high of 0.73, suggesting options traders are not adding meaningful downside hedges at current levels.
The Street view is firmly bullish on paper, though the gap between target and price is wide enough to flag. HC Wainwright, the only active analyst coverage, lowered its target to $9.25 from $11.75 on August 12 following the most recent earnings release, while keeping a Buy rating. That target is more than double the current price of $4.18. The bull case rests on antimony pricing, which surged from roughly $6 per pound to nearly $29 per pound in a year, alongside management's stated 2026 revenue target of $125 million. The bear case is operational: a net loss of $3.9 million last quarter, a quality factor score near the bottom of the universe, and EPS momentum that was strong over 30 days but deeply negative over 90 days. The PE multiple has compressed sharply, down 38 points over the past 30 days to just above 70x, reflecting the stock's fall rather than any earnings improvement.
Insider buying adds an unusual counterpoint to the bearish positioning. Four separate insiders bought shares between August 28 and September 1, none under a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan. Chairman and CEO Gary Evans bought 20,000 shares at $4.92. Director Joseph Carrabba paid $4.72 for 21,300 shares. Director Lloyd Bardswich added 20,000 at $4.635. A fourth director made a smaller purchase. Net insider buying over the past 90 days reached 75,200 shares at a combined value of roughly $392,000. These are not large in absolute dollar terms, but four open-market purchases within days of each other, none pre-planned, is a cluster worth noting. The activist register is also worth flagging: Patrick Dugan holds a Schedule 13D/A position, an active filing that signals an intent beyond passive ownership, last disclosed at 4.1% of shares as of November 2025. Dugan may have moved below 5% since then and would not be required to file again; that stake is as-last-disclosed.
The peer group offered little shelter this week. Closely correlated names fell broadly: USAR dropped 17%, TMC slid 15%, and CRML lost nearly 14%. LAC fell 11% and MP dropped 11%. The weakness in UAMY is in line with a broad selloff across the critical minerals space, rather than a company-specific event.
The next earnings date is November 13. With short interest near its recent peak, availability near zero, and insiders having bought in late August at prices above the current level, the setup between now and that print is where attention will be focused next.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open UAMY 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.
