DiaMedica Therapeutics heads into its May 7 results with options traders decidedly bullish and short sellers maintaining a meaningful — but softening — position in the lending market.
The clearest bullish signal is in options. The put/call ratio has dropped to just 0.12, well below its 20-day average of 0.17, indicating that call demand is dominating and downside protection is being shed into the print. That's the market's most direct vote of confidence in the near-term setup, with the PCR near its lowest levels of the past year.
Short interest tells a more complicated story. Bears hold a meaningful stake — 9% of the free float — but the position has been trimming. Short shares fell roughly 0.8% on the week and are down fractionally from a month-ago peak. The ORTEX short score remains elevated at 84.2, ranking in the top percentile of the universe for shorting pressure. Borrow costs, however, are benign at just over 1%, and have edged lower over the past month, suggesting shorts are not under meaningful squeeze pressure heading in. Availability has eased from its tightest levels — utilization peaked near 93% in early April and has since pulled back to around 83%, giving the borrow market a little more room.
The analyst consensus is uniformly bullish, though all the formal price target activity pre-dates today by more than six months and should be treated with caution. Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage with an Overweight rating in November 2025, with a target well above the current $6.52 price — though that gap is substantial enough to warrant scepticism about whether the target reflects current trial progress. The bull case centres on DM199's interim Phase 2 results in preeclampsia, where statistically significant blood pressure reductions without placental transfer drove target upgrades across the coverage group last summer. Bears counter that prior disease-modifying attempts have failed to extend gestation in preeclampsia, and that the company's ability to fund continued clinical development remains the central execution risk. Capital availability — not efficacy alone — is the friction point bears keep returning to.
The most recent earnings print, in late March, resulted in a 3.3% one-day decline followed by a modest five-day drift lower. That's a measured reaction for a clinical-stage biotech, suggesting the market has not been treating these events as binary catalysts — at least not yet. Jan Stahlberg, the company's largest shareholder at over 16% of shares, was an aggressive buyer through November 2025, adding more than one million net shares. That conviction from the top holder provides a floor of sorts, though the trades are now six months old.
The May 7 report is less a test of near-term revenue and more a test of whether DM199's trial data can sustain the bullish narrative built since last summer's interim results — and whether the company can reassure the market on its financing runway.
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