Birchtech Corp. heads into its May 13 Q1 earnings call with short sellers rebuilding positions at an extraordinary pace — against a backdrop of thin float and a CEO who recently bought in at a premium.
The most striking data point this week is the speed of short interest accumulation. Estimated short shares surged more than 778% over the past week to roughly 26,700 shares — up from fewer than 4,500 just seven days earlier. That near-instantaneous rebuild follows a sharper preceding collapse: in mid-to-late March, estimated shorts topped 60,000 shares before grinding down to below 600 through early April. The current re-inflation, while dramatic in percentage terms, still leaves the absolute short count well below March peaks. With official FINRA data showing just 25,549 shares short as of mid-April, the raw numbers remain tiny in absolute terms — this is a micro-float name where even small position changes register as explosive percentage moves.
The borrow market, however, does not reflect a panicked scramble for shares. Availability is wide open. The lending pool is largely unused — utilization has pulled back to just 7.3% after briefly touching 15% mid-week, and remains a fraction of its 52-week high of 41.1%. Cost to borrow has been remarkably stable, running near 5.9% this week, down slightly from last week and well below the 11% spike seen briefly in early March. That combination — surging estimated shorts but loose borrow conditions — suggests the short rebuild is opportunistic rather than desperate, and there is no indication of a borrow squeeze developing ahead of earnings.
The Street is quiet on this name. No recent analyst rating changes or price target updates are present in the data, which is unsurprising for a company with no disclosed market cap and a sub-$2 share price on the AMEX. Factor scores paint a mixed picture: the days-to-cover rank is elevated at 91st percentile, signalling that the position would take longer to unwind relative to typical trading volume. The ORTEX short score itself is modest at 31, having ticked up from a low of around 28 in early April but well off any extreme. Valuation data is limited to an enterprise value estimate of roughly $34 million.
The insider register is worth watching in context. CEO and Founder Richard MacPherson bought 312,500 shares at $2.40 in late February — a $750,000 outlay that lifted his stake to 11.2% of shares outstanding. That purchase came after a cluster of insider selling in December 2025, when MacPherson, Company Secretary David Kaye, and SVP John Pavlish all sold shares near $0.93. The February buy at $2.40 therefore represents a meaningful reversal of direction at a significantly higher price — and the stock, now at $1.59, is trading below that purchase price. Net insider activity over the past 90 days is a positive 968,701 shares with a net value of roughly $1.36 million, driven almost entirely by the MacPherson buy.
Price action has been volatile. BCHT is down 16% over the past month to $1.59, despite recovering nearly 3% over the past week. The last earnings event on March 31 produced a positive one-day move of just over 3%, which faded to essentially flat by the end of the following week. The upcoming May 13 call now provides the next hard catalyst, and the combination of a rebuilding short base, a CEO holding shares purchased well above the current price, and an earnings date less than two weeks out sets up a notably charged environment for the print.
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