BMNR Bears Keep Covering as Activist Stake Adds a New Wrinkle

The short-covering wave in BMNR has continued into this week, but a 13D activist on the register and a notable institutional reshuffling give the story a second dimension worth watching.

The covering has not stopped. Short interest is now 9.3% of the free float, down another 16% on the week and down 35% over the past month. To put that in context: at the start of October, more than 47 million shares were short. That number is now 26.5 million. The previous note flagged the reversal starting mid-October, and the data show it has kept going. The ORTEX short score has followed, falling from 53.5 on October 7 to 44.1, now well into neutral territory. Borrowing costs are low at 0.38% annually and have dropped 16% on the week, consistent with bears not fighting hard for borrow. Availability has expanded to 280%, up from 222% a week ago and well clear of the 52-week trough near 49%, meaning the lending pool is loose and there is no mechanical squeeze pressure forcing the hand of remaining shorts. Options positioning is equally relaxed. The put/call ratio of 0.45 is fractionally below its 20-day average of 0.46, almost exactly on the norm, which means options traders have not moved to hedge into the next earnings print due November 20.

The Street angle is complicated by a thin analyst footprint and dated data, so the more useful framing is valuation. The trailing P/E has re-rated upward: it has climbed to 30x, a gain of more than 10 points over the past 30 days, driven by the stock's recovery from its October trough even as earnings expectations have not moved. Enterprise value now sits near $12.7 billion. Factor scores paint a cautious picture. The EPS surprise rank is at the 13th percentile, reflecting the Q3 miss flagged in the October 14 note. The short-score rank is at the 32nd percentile, consistent with a position that has eased but not vanished. Sector positioning ranks at the 50th percentile, squarely in the middle of the application software cohort BMNR is classified within, an odd home for a bitcoin immersion miner.

The more newsworthy structural fact is the activist on the register. MOZAYYX UGP, LLC filed a Schedule 13D in July 2025 with a 9.99% stake, the highest-signal filing type in SEC disclosures, indicating active intent rather than a passive position. That filing has not been amended. Separately, Peter Thiel, who initially filed a 13G at 9.1% in July 2025, subsequently reduced his disclosed stake to 0.9% by November 2025. As required by the rules: these positions are as-last-disclosed around the 5% threshold, and any holder dropping below 5% may exit without a further filing. Among institutional holders, the picture is active. BlackRock added 16.2 million shares in the most recently reported period, bringing its stake to 4.5%. Vanguard Capital Management holds 4.9% after adding 6.2 million shares. FMR (Fidelity) added 7.1 million shares to reach 1.3%. State Street added 6.4 million. The pattern across these names points to index and quasi-index money flowing in as the share count has grown, rather than high-conviction active accumulation. ARK Investment Management holds 1.46%, having added only 228,571 shares in the period.

Past earnings reactions offer useful context ahead of the November 20 print. The four most recent events all produced positive next-day moves, ranging from flat to just over 8%. The five-day window has also been positive in three of the four cases, with one reading reaching nearly 18%. The Q3 miss in October was absorbed with a modest positive move on the day, suggesting the market had already priced deterioration. Whether the same dynamic holds for Q4 depends on whether guidance for 2027 gets revised further.

The note to watch into November 20 is whether the covering pace slows now that short interest has retreated to near 9%, or whether the remaining bears use any price recovery off the $22.82 close to rebuild. The MOZAYYX 13D stake is the sleeper variable: any amendment to that filing, up or down, would be the single loudest signal in this name.