Why this matters — Three distinct ORTEX data streams aligned on PMEC (Primech Holdings Ltd.) within 48 hours. Short interest, cost to borrow, and utilization all moved from near-dormant to extreme levels simultaneously.
Short interest shot from ~54,000 shares on April 22 to 474,879 shares by April 24. That is a 638% increase in one week. As a percentage of free float, it now stands at 1.24% — still low in absolute terms, but the velocity is the story.
Cost to borrow went vertical. CTB sat at ~2.5% for weeks. On April 23 it hit 143%. By April 24 it reached 182.9%. That is a 6,490% week-on-week surge. Borrowing shares to short PMEC now costs lenders nearly twice the stock's value per year.
Utilization confirmed the squeeze on supply. It sat below 2% through most of April. On April 23 it spiked to 94.2%. The 52-week high is 100%. As of April 24, utilization eased slightly to 84.95% — but remains at extreme levels relative to its recent baseline.
ORTEX's short score jumped from 28.3 on April 22 to 66.8 on April 23 — a near-doubling in one session. The utilization rank stands at the 4th percentile, meaning the stock is among the most tightly borrowed names in its universe. Against that pressure, the CEO Kin Wai Ho made an open-market purchase of 839,963 shares at $1.14 on March 23, worth approximately $959,000. The largest institutional holder, Sapphire Universe Holdings, added 1.5 million shares as recently as late March, taking its stake to 80.1% of shares outstanding.
The utilization history shows two prior brief spikes — 62.5% on March 19 and 55% on March 17 — both of which collapsed within one session. The current episode is both larger in magnitude and more sustained, lasting multiple consecutive days.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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