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Modivo enters its next earnings window with the same paradox that has defined the stock for weeks: the borrow market is completely exhausted, carry costs are high, and yet the stock keeps grinding higher.
The lending picture has not softened since the October 9 note. Availability is back at zero, every share in the pool is lent out, and that reading has been near zero on all but a handful of sessions across the past six weeks. Cost to borrow has eased marginally from the 17.3% peak reported last week to 15.8%, but that remains roughly 19% above the level seen at the end of August. For a short already in position, the carry alone is a meaningful drag. For anyone looking to initiate, the economics are worse than they have been in months. The ORTEX short score has barely budged, sitting at 91.6 compared with 91.4 a week ago, a reading that flags this as one of the most heavily shorted names in its coverage universe. The short score rank and utilization rank both sit in the first percentile.
What that positioning cannot explain is the direction of the stock. MDV closed Tuesday at PLN 93.0, up 3.1% on the week and 7.7% over the past month. Each of the recent post-earnings sessions has added to the stock's recovery: the October 1 release produced a 3.4% one-day gain and a 7.5% five-day move. The August print produced the opposite, a 7.4% sell-off. The pattern across the earnings history is asymmetric rather than directional, two positive reactions and one sharply negative one, which makes the short case difficult to time even when the conviction is high.
On valuation, the picture is more mixed than the price action implies. The PE multiple sits near 14x, up about 0.7 turns over the past month. EV/EBITDA is just above 6x, broadly stable. The EPS momentum score ranks in the 98th percentile on a 12-month forward basis, which at least partially explains why the stock has not collapsed under the weight of the short position. Quality and value scores remain weak, as flagged in the September stock-score note, with thin returns on capital and a price-to-book above 2.6x leaving little fundamental cushion.
On the ownership side, the major change worth flagging is the founding shareholder context. ULTRO, the vehicle linked to founder and CEO Dariusz Milek, reported a reduction of 6.5 million shares in the April filing, taking its stake to 33.3%. Milek himself was a buyer in mid-2024, picking up shares around PLN 120. The stock is now materially above that level. Nationale-Nederlanden added nearly 3.1 million shares in the same April reporting period, bringing its stake to 9%. Goldman Sachs holds just above 6.4%. These are not fast-money holders, which partly explains why the borrow pool stays so tight: there are few natural lenders willing to release stock into the lending market.
The next earnings event is scheduled for 27 November. With borrow availability at zero and carry costs elevated, the key question heading into that date is whether a repeated positive earnings reaction forces any short covering, or whether the entrenched position holds regardless of the price signal.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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