Eric Sprott has been buying HYMC every time it falls — and he's still buying.
The mining billionaire has added 300,000 shares since April 9, spending roughly $11.5 million across three separate purchases. He now controls 34.5% of Hycroft Mining Holding Corporation. That persistent accumulation — at prices between $37.84 and $39.06 — frames the entire setup into the May 5 Q1 results. The stock closed at $38.73 on Friday, up 6.2% on the day and 10% over the past month, despite sitting well below Sprott's earlier buy points above $45. The dominant signal here is a single informed actor buying every pullback, not broad market enthusiasm.
Short interest adds a genuine wrinkle. Nearly 11% of the free float is sold short — a meaningful level — with roughly 8.9 million shares short as of April 30 and 4.9 days to cover. The borrow market is tighter than it looks comfortable: availability has tightened to roughly 20% of what was available at the April 14 peak, suggesting there is limited slack in the lending pool for new short positions to be built. Cost to borrow, however, has actually eased over the past month, running near 1.05% — a fraction of what a stressed borrow market would show. That combination describes a moderately constrained short base, not a squeeze setup.
Options positioning tells a calmer story than the price action might suggest. The put/call ratio is running just below its 20-day average at 0.54, essentially neutral, and well below the 52-week high of 0.84. There is no elevated hedging demand visible in the options market heading into the print. The ORTEX short score of 68.7 is elevated — in the top few percentiles by short-score rank — but has been broadly stable over the past two weeks, suggesting the short base has neither materially grown nor fled.
The financial picture is unsentimental. Estimated full-year revenue of $1 million against a net loss projection of $46.6 million and negative operating cashflow of $20 million underscores that this is a development-stage asset story, not an earnings beat story. The market cap of roughly $3.1 billion reflects gold optionality and balance-sheet leverage to the metal's price, not near-term profitability. Past earnings prints have been consistently punishing — the last three events each saw single-day declines ranging from 10% to 19%. The May 5 print will test whether Sprott's floor-buying conviction is enough to break that pattern, and whether an 11% short position decides to cover or press.
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