Brookfield Asset Management enters the final day of September with short positioning frozen in place and the stock holding up better than almost every name in its peer group, a combination that tells a quieter story than the previous week's rebuild narrative.
The short interest picture has not moved. At 10.54 million shares, or 0.65% of the free float, the position established in the week of September 21 has sat unchanged for nine consecutive trading days. The direction that mattered last week, a 12.4% build in a single step, has simply stopped. Borrow conditions remain extremely loose: availability is running at 823%, meaning there are roughly eight shares available to lend for every one already borrowed, and the cost to borrow has drifted back down to 0.63% after a brief spike toward 1.14% in mid-September. The ORTEX short score is range-bound between 37 and 39 over the past two weeks, placing it well clear of territory that would suggest any meaningful bearish conviction. Positioning looks dormant rather than building.
The more interesting story this week is relative performance. BAM is down 1.6% over the past five sessions to CAD 63.75, which looks modest alongside a peer group that has taken a harder knock. Blackstone fell 8.1% on the week, lost 6.1%, dropped 5.3%, and and each gave back around 4.6%. Parent company slipped 2.9%. BAM's relative resilience stands out across a group where the correlation to BAM ranges from 72% to 88%, making the divergence meaningful rather than coincidental. was the only name close to matching BAM's stability, off just 1.4%.
Valuation multiples have pulled back over the past month in line with the share price decline. The P/E has compressed by about 2.85 turns over thirty days to 21.6x, and EV/EBITDA has come in by 2.3 turns to 16.1x. The price-to-book of 7.2x remains high in absolute terms, consistent with a firm whose earnings power is judged primarily on fee-related income rather than balance sheet assets. Two factor scores worth noting: the dividend score ranks in the 90th percentile, and the 30-day EPS momentum score also sits at 90, suggesting the earnings revision trend has stayed positive even as the price has fallen 12% over the past month. The days-to-cover rank is weak at the 14th percentile, consistent with the low absolute short interest.
Insider activity from late August is the last notable ownership development in the data. CFO Justin Beber exercised and sold roughly 31,500 net shares on August 19, realising around USD 1.6 million, while Nicholas Goodman conducted a smaller exercise-and-sell on August 21. Both transactions carry the signature of routine option monetisation rather than discretionary sales, and the values involved are small relative to positions. There has been no open-market buying recorded in the past 90 days.
The next earnings event date is not yet set. With no upcoming catalyst on the calendar, what to watch is whether BAM's relative calm persists if the US alternative-asset sector continues to slide, or whether the 12-month stock decline of roughly 12% and the loosening borrow market begin to attract fresh short positioning beyond the level that has now held steady for nearly two weeks.
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