Coeur Mining heads into its Wednesday-afternoon earnings call with short interest back down to pre-March levels. The stock has dropped 5.3% over the past week to close at $19.31, but the short side has pulled back even faster — shares shorted fell 56% over the past month to 34.5 million, now representing 5.4% of the float. That's a dramatic reversal from late March when short interest spiked above 80 million shares and utilisation briefly touched 23%, near the 52-week high of 25%. Borrow remains inexpensive at 0.38%, down 24% over the month. Options activity is running slightly more defensive than usual, with the put/call ratio at 0.30 versus a 20-day mean of 0.28 — a modest 1.5 standard deviations above average.
Analyst opinion is broadly constructive, with five Buy ratings, three Outperform, and one Hold. The consensus target of $28.15 implies 46% upside from current levels. CIBC initiated coverage with an Outperformer rating and $40 target in early March. RBC lifted its target to $26 from $22 in February while keeping Outperform. But Canaccord downgraded to Hold on the day after the last print in late February, citing valuation concerns even as it trimmed the target only slightly to $26. That move captured the tension in the stock: production has been solid and the balance sheet has improved sharply, but the recent rally — the stock is still up 5.5% over one month — has made some on the Street more selective. The bull case centres on strong Q2 operational performance last year, the successful Rochester expansion, and a net leverage ratio that has collapsed from 2.9x a year ago to 0.4x. Bears worry that multiples have run too far, pointing to a downside scenario that assumes a 50% contraction in target-price multiples from current levels.
Major institutions have been adding. Van Eck increased its position by 14 million shares in the first quarter, and FMR added 15.3 million. Insider activity tells a different story — executives sold a combined $10.3 million net over the past 90 days, including CEO Mitchell Krebs offloading over $2.5 million in late February around the $27 level. After the last four earnings events, the stock rallied sharply in the immediate aftermath, with one-day moves averaging roughly 10% and five-day gains in the mid-teens. Those reactions occurred during a period of improving fundamentals and tightening credit.
The print will test whether the operational momentum and balance-sheet repair that drove the recent move can justify valuations that have prompted at least one major firm to step to the sidelines. Peers in the precious-metals space have also sold off over the past week, with correlated names like PAAS and AG down 5.5% and 4.8% respectively.
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