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Modivo has printed its earnings and the dust is settling, but the short positioning that defined the pre-earnings setup has barely moved.
The October 1 earnings release produced a modest 3.4% one-day gain, a sharp contrast to the 7.4% sell-off that followed the August print. The stock closed last Friday at PLN 88.80, down 3.5% on the week but up roughly 3.6% over the past month. That monthly drift higher is notable given how aggressively the stock has been shorted: this is not a name where bears have been consistently rewarded on the price line, even as they maintain an unusually large position.
The lending market remains the defining feature of this stock, and the post-earnings session has not changed that. Availability has edged back up to 1.2% from zero on September 30, when the pool ran completely dry for the third time in September. That is still extraordinarily tight: fewer than one share remains available for every 80 currently borrowed. Cost to borrow has eased slightly, down around 12% over the past week to 15.1%, but it remains elevated against the 13.8% level seen in mid-August and is up roughly 9% over the past month. Anyone who tried to build a new short position around the earnings date was paying a meaningful carry penalty into an uncertain event. The ORTEX short score of 91.4 has been virtually unmoved across the past two weeks, a signal that the aggregate short position has not materially shifted despite the price action. At more than 20% of free float, this is an entrenched bearish call, not a tactical hedge.
Valuation offers little obvious reason for the shorts to cover. The stock trades on a trailing P/E of 12.8x, down roughly one turn over the past month, and a price-to-book of 2.7x. EV/EBITDA is running at 5.8x, also drifting lower. These are not obviously stretched multiples for a Polish apparel e-commerce platform, but the quality signal is weak: a recent ORTEX stock score note flagged a Quality sub-score of 31.5 and a return on capital employed that is barely above zero. Bears are not fighting an expensive stock; they are betting that thin margins and weak capital returns cannot sustain even modest re-rating.
Ownership is concentrated and has been active. ULTRO, the largest holder with a 30.7% stake, trimmed by 6.5 million shares as last reported in April, a substantial reduction. Nationale-Nederlanden, the second-largest holder at 8.3%, moved in the opposite direction, adding 3.1 million shares over the same period. Goldman Sachs reported a 5.9% stake as of mid-June with a small addition, and PTE Allianz Polska added around 500,000 shares to reach 5.8%. The divergence between the anchor shareholder cutting and institutional funds adding is a tension worth tracking. Insider activity is stale, with the most recent disclosed trade from early July when Deputy Chairman Karol Półtorak bought 4,500 shares at around PLN 102 to 103, well above the current price.
The next earnings event is scheduled for November 27. Between now and then, the question is whether the brief post-earnings availability window closes again as it did repeatedly through September, or whether borrow supply remains marginally less tight as the market digests the print.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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