Kodak shorts rebuild ahead of next week's earnings

KODK heads into its November 3 earnings report with short interest climbing fast and an activist firmly on the register.

The most striking move this week is the speed of short rebuilding. Short interest jumped 20% in seven days to 6.9% of the free float, roughly 6.65 million shares. That is not yet a crowded short by absolute standards, but the pace of the rebuild is notable: positions had been drifting lower through early October before reversing sharply on October 23. The ORTEX short score has followed, moving from 50.5 to 56.4 over the past two weeks. Despite the additional supply demand, the borrow market remains relaxed. Availability is near 982%, meaning there are close to ten shares available to lend for every one currently borrowed, and cost to borrow has actually eased about 14% over the past month to 0.45%. The short rebuild is a conviction call, not a squeeze setup.

Options positioning pulls in the opposite direction, suggesting most market participants are leaning toward the upside. The put/call ratio is 0.104, below its 20-day average of 0.119 and sitting near the bottom of its 52-week range of 0.08 to 0.35. That skew toward calls is consistent with the stock's 5% gain on the week to $9.45, even as short sellers add to their positions. The two camps are pulling against each other: options traders are positioned for a positive print, shorts are hedging against disappointment.

The Street angle is thin. The earnings yield factor score ranks at the 93rd percentile, which says the stock screens cheaply on that measure relative to the broader universe. The sector score is at the 50th percentile, the short score rank is at the 17th, and dividend score at the 22nd. On valuation, the enterprise value figure available is around $1.17 billion against a market cap of roughly $925 million, but detailed forward multiples are not in the current data. Analyst coverage data is not current enough to cite with confidence.

The ownership picture carries one genuinely newsworthy fact. B. Thomas Golisano holds a Schedule 13D position, an activist filing, at 15.8% of shares outstanding, up from 13.1% on his previous filing in August 2025. A 13D signals active intent rather than passive accumulation. Golisano is the single largest holder by a wide margin, with BlackRock the next largest institutional holder at 5.5% after adding over 900,000 shares through the quarter to September. The activist register also shows the Vanguard Group exiting below the 5% threshold and Southeastern Asset Management filing a zero-holding amendment, though as the disclosure note makes clear, those positions are as last reported and further changes may not yet be reflected.

Kodak's last earnings print in August produced a one-day move of around 5.7% and extended to 5.8% over five days. The result announced just before that, on August 4, moved the stock 16.5% on the day and nearly 19% over the following week. With two very different outcomes in recent history, the pattern offers limited guidance on direction. What to watch next week is whether the short rebuild into November 3 proves to be a correctly placed hedge or whether another positive surprise forces a rapid unwind in a market where borrow supply is plentiful.