AngloGold Ashanti arrives at its May 5 Q1 2026 results having spent the past month shaking out a wave of short sellers — a positioning shift that frames the print very differently than the crowded-short setup visible just six weeks ago.
Short sellers have been covering aggressively. Short Interest as a % of Free Float has fallen from roughly 1.3% in early April to just 0.64% now, a drop of nearly 40% in a single month. The pace accelerated last week, with short shares falling almost 19%. At 0.64% of float and a short score sitting at 28 — well into the low-risk range of the 0-100 scale — the bears have largely voted with their feet before the earnings release. Days to cover of 2.4 and a borrow cost of just 0.61% underscore how cheap and easy it remains to initiate a new short position; the covering reflects a change in conviction, not a mechanical squeeze. Borrow availability remains very loose, meaning there is no shortage of supply for anyone who wants to build a position in either direction.
Options tell a more nuanced story. The put/call ratio, at 1.37, is actually running slightly below its 20-day average of 1.43. That is a material shift from earlier in the year, when the PCR peaked at 2.43. Over the past two weeks, put-heavy positioning has given way to something closer to neutral, even as the stock has given back 6.6% over the past week and 4.7% over the past month to close at $92.76. That divergence — shorts covering, options hedging easing, yet the price drifting lower — suggests selling pressure has been more about the gold price macro trade unwinding than a company-specific concern. Peers confirm the sector-wide nature of the move: fell 8.3% on the week, dropped 10%, and lost 10.2%.
The bull case rests on a compelling structural tailwind. Analysts have been lifting price targets throughout the past five months, with Citigroup and JPMorgan carrying Overweight and Buy ratings and consensus pointing to a mean target of roughly $121 — about 30% above Thursday's close. The revised long-term gold price forecasts underpinning those targets (in the $2,750/oz range) align with estimated Q1 revenues of $3.3 billion and net income of $1.2 billion, implying an EV/EBITDA of under 5x. A dividend score ranking in the 98th percentile adds a yield-focused layer to the bull case. Bears point to the operational risk side: cost inflation, resource estimate uncertainty, and the company's exposure to complex, multi-jurisdiction mining jurisdictions that make execution harder to forecast. The most recent analyst action — Scotiabank trimming its target by $1 to $133 in late March while maintaining its Sector Outperform rating — typifies the prevailing Street mood: constructive on the story but applying slightly tighter valuation discipline after the run-up into year-end.
The prior earnings print in February was emphatically rewarded, with the stock rising over 12% on the day and nearly 19% over the following five sessions. Tuesday's release tests whether that operational momentum — and the gold price thesis that powered it — has survived a month of equity market turbulence.
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