The entire C-suite at CDE cashed out near the highs, short interest has surged 34% in a week, and the stock has given back a third of its recent gains — a charged combination heading into Tuesday's Q1 results.
The insider story is hard to ignore. On February 26–27, virtually every senior executive sold, including CEO Mitchell Krebs ($2.5M across two days), CFO Thomas Whelan ($552K), and COO Mick Routledge ($474K), all transacting at prices between $26.56 and $27.15 — well above the current $18.56. Net insider activity over the past 90 days totals roughly $10.3M in sales across 403,567 net shares sold. The stock has since fallen roughly 32% from those transaction prices, making the cluster look prescient, or at minimum, highlighting how much the stock has given back since early 2026.
Short interest has moved sharply in the run-up. Bears added aggressively, with SI climbing 34% over the past week to reach 6.6% of the free float — nearly double where it stood in early April, when it peaked near 9.6% of float before retreating and then rebounding. Despite that jump in borrowed shares, borrow costs remain notably relaxed at 0.39% annualised, easing 16% over the past week. Availability in the lending pool is wide open, with utilisation running just 6.5% against a 52-week high of 25.4% — meaning there is plenty of room for new short positions without any squeeze pressure in the borrow market.
Options traders are not leaning defensive. The put/call ratio of 0.29 sits almost exactly in line with its 20-day average of 0.289, and well below the 52-week high of 0.55. Call volume is dominant. That diverges from the short interest build, and makes the setup more ambiguous than the SI move alone would suggest: bears are adding through the stock-lending market, but options participants are not reaching for protection.
Analysts remain broadly constructive, though recent history adds nuance. Canaccord Genuity upgraded the stock to Buy on April 29 after downgrading it to Hold in February — the downgrade came at nearly the same moment the executives were selling at $26–27. CIBC initiated with Outperform and a $40 target in March, a reading that looks ambitious against today's $18.56, and may reflect optimism about metal prices more than near-term fundamentals. The bull case centres on Rochester expansion success, balance sheet repair (net leverage down to 0.4x from 2.9x a year ago), and gold/silver production tracking above plan. The bear case focuses on whether the valuation — EV/EBITDA around 4.5x, P/E near 8.9x — can hold if production costs disappoint or metals prices soften.
Tuesday's print is less about the headline production numbers — Q2 2025 already demonstrated the Rochester ramp was tracking well — and more about whether Q1 costs and cash generation justify a stock that has fallen 32% from where its own management chose to sell.
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