Adlai Nortye Ltd. goes into today's earnings release carrying one of the most extreme short-positioning profiles in the biotech universe.
Short sellers have piled in hard. SI % of free float has ballooned to nearly 8% of the float — up 166% over the past month — and jumped 26% in the last week alone. The borrow market confirms the intensity of that demand: availability has collapsed to just 11.6% of short interest, meaning for every share currently lent out there is barely one-tenth of a share still available to borrow. The lending pool has been essentially maxed out for weeks, with availability running at or near its annual floor. At 11.85% annualised, the cost to borrow has eased roughly 9% from a week ago, but remains well into elevated territory. The ORTEX short score of 81.2 — the highest it has been in at least a fortnight — ranks ANL in the bottom 3rd percentile of the universe on short-positioning pressure.
The bull case rests on pipeline optionality. Four analysts carry Buy ratings, with a consensus mean target of $27.75 against a closing price of $13.86 — implying roughly double-digit upside in the eyes of the Street. Jones Trading initiated coverage yesterday with a $22 target, adding a fresh voice to the buy side. HC Wainwright raised its target to $20 in April after lifting the stock from Neutral in February, a material reversal from the prior downgrade. Bulls point to the AN8025 asset, which shows preclinical advantages over existing PD-L1 antibodies, and to AN9025, a pan-KRAS inhibitor addressing a broad set of mutations that remain underserved clinically.
Bears focus on capital risk. The discontinuation of the buparlisib programme removed what was once the company's lead asset, and the pipeline that remains requires sustained funding. With a net loss running near $48m annually against just $6.7m in revenue, dilutive raises remain a live concern. The EPS surprise factor score at the 93rd percentile suggests the company has outrun negative estimate revisions, but a pre-revenue-stage oncology company has little in its financials to anchor valuation — the print is really a pipeline update, not an income statement test.
Earnings history adds a sharp-edged context. The four most recent events produced swings of -0.3%, +0.5%, -9.1%, and +4.0% on day one, with five-day moves running as wide as +33% and -17%. That variance, combined with a borrow market that is close to fully exhausted, sets the stage for a volatile session: any meaningful catalyst — positive or negative — will land in a market where short-covering pressure could amplify moves in either direction.
Today's print will test whether the recent buildup in short positions reflects genuine scepticism about the pipeline's near-term readout potential, or a positioning overhang that unwinds sharply on any constructive data.
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