AMX Shorts Hold Steady as the Rebuild Stalls Before Today's Print

América Móvil reports Q3 results today, October 21, with short sellers showing little conviction in either direction after a month of active repositioning.

The short interest story has taken a small step back from the previous preview's narrative of a sharp rebuild. Short positions ticked up just 2% on the day to 6.52 million shares as of October 19, and are up roughly 2% on the week. That is a notable deceleration from the 7.6% weekly gain described in the October 17 article. The month-on-month picture is more striking in the other direction: short interest is down 20% from a month ago, meaning the mid-September peak of roughly 8.7 million shares has not come close to being reclaimed. The borrow market offers no pressure either way. Availability is at 3,888% of short interest, nearly 11 times the 52-week low of 418%, and cost to borrow at 0.37% has dropped 13% over the past week. There is abundant room for short sellers to add or cover with minimal friction.

The stock itself has held most of its recent gains. AMX closed at $22.90 on October 20, up 5.6% on the week and a steady 2.1% on the month. Options positioning is neutral: the put/call ratio at 0.74 is marginally below its 20-day average of 0.75, with a z-score of just -0.11, nowhere near signalling defensive hedging ahead of the print.

The analyst picture leans positive but is split on degree. JP Morgan upgraded AMX to Overweight in August, lifting its target to $32, a move that still leaves the stock trading roughly 28% below that level. UBS carries a Buy with a $31.50 target. Scotiabank is more cautious at Sector Perform with a $20.80 target, the only major house below the current price. The consensus mean target of $29.34 implies meaningful upside from $22.90. The stock trades at roughly 11.3 times earnings, which is undemanding for a company of América Móvil's scale in Latin American telecoms, and the price-to-book of 3.3 has moved up modestly over the past month.

Ownership is tightly controlled. The Slim family and related entities account for more than 56% of shares between them, with Trust No. F/0126 holding 29.7% and Control Empresarial de Capitales another 18.2%. Institutional flows among the remaining free float show modest recent accumulation: BlackRock added 5.2 million shares through September, and GQG Partners added 118.7 million shares as of June. The concentrated structure limits the influence of short sellers materially, which partly explains why availability remains so deep even as shorts have fluctuated.

Today's print will test whether América Móvil's subscriber trends across Latin America justify the gap between the current price and a consensus target that sits nearly 28% higher, and whether currency headwinds in key markets like Mexico and Brazil have left a visible mark on reported revenue.