Patriot National Bancorp reported Q1 results this week that landed well below estimates — and shorts have been quietly adding to their position throughout, reinforcing a bearish lean that has built steadily since late April.
The Q1 earnings miss is the clearest context for this week's price action. EPS came in at -$0.02, a marked improvement on last year's -$0.21 and revenue jumped to $10.3M from $6.7M a year earlier — but the headline print still missed estimates by $0.27 per share. The stock fell 7.6% in the session following the May 8 earnings event and extended those losses to -10.1% over five days. The most recent event on May 15 — the 10-Q filing — triggered another sharp move; the stock closed at $1.07 on May 15, down 4.5% on the day. That's a 19.5% decline over the past month, a punishing slide for a name trading just above $1.
Short positioning has been drifting higher throughout, and the scale of it is worth flagging. Short interest climbed to 5.2% of free float as of May 14 — up from around 3.95% on April 23. That April 23 inflection point matters: in the two weeks before it, shorts stepped back sharply, pulling short interest below 4%. Since then, it has rebuilt steadily, recovering toward the 5.2-5.3% range that prevailed in early April. The week-on-week increase is modest at 4.6%, but the directional trend is clear — shorts have been rebuilding into each negative catalyst. The ORTEX short score held in the 62-65 range across the past two weeks, with the most recent reading at 64.2, consistent with elevated short positioning pressure.
Borrowing conditions remain relaxed, which means the short rebuild faces no structural friction. The cost to borrow ticked up 12% over the past week to 1.29% APR — notable in percentage terms but still cheap in absolute terms. Availability is comfortable: the lending pool holds roughly 175% more shares than are currently borrowed, far from the near-fully-used state the market saw when 52-week availability tightened toward its lows. With borrow cheap and plentiful, there's nothing in the lending market to deter new shorts from entering.
Ownership tells a more layered story. The two largest holders are individuals — Steven Sugarman (President/CEO, ~9.5% of shares, last added 2.1M shares in March) and Alon Abady (~7.3%, added 3.9M shares in early April). Together they hold over 16% of the company. BlackRock recently added 841K shares, and Angel Oak Capital added 3.1M. But the insider picture is less clean: the CEO received 4.05M shares via award in March and sold 1.96M at $1.37 in the same period — netting around $2.7M. CFO Carlos Salas received 333K shares via award on April 30 and sold 124K the same day at $1.23. These are award-related sales rather than conviction selling, but they confirm insiders are not accumulating in the open market.
Peers also had a rough week, which provides some context. BPRN fell 4.1% on the week, FCAP dropped 5.5%, and FRST shed 4.4%. PNBK's 2.7% weekly decline was actually softer than most correlated names, suggesting the broader regional bank tape provided some wind rather than headwinds this week — and yet the stock still lost ground. With the 10-Q now filed and no next earnings event in the calendar, the focus shifts to whether short sellers hold their rebuilt positions or trim ahead of what is a notably thin liquidity profile.
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