Jaguar Health heads into its May 21 earnings report with the lending market telling a more alarming story than the short interest numbers alone suggest.
The borrow market has tightened dramatically over the past month. Cost to borrow has surged to 234% annualised — more than eleven times the ~21% level recorded at end-April. That move reflects acute scarcity: availability has been oscillating between near-zero and roughly 16% over the past two weeks, compared to readings above 80% back in mid-April. The 52-week minimum availability hit 0%, meaning there have been periods recently when every available share in the lending pool was already borrowed. Short interest itself has actually fallen sharply — down 25% on the week and 80% over the month to just 2.9% of the float — but that rapid unwind of positions, combined with a much smaller lending pool, is precisely what has driven borrow costs to extreme levels. Short sellers who remain are paying a steep price to hold those positions overnight.
The ORTEX short score reinforces the bearish lean. At 84.4, it ranks in the bottom 1% of the broader universe by short score percentile, a composite that factors in borrow costs, short interest dynamics and availability. The RSI14 reading of 25.9 places the stock in deeply oversold territory. The broader fundamental picture offers little encouragement: ORTEX factor scores flag an F-score of 1 and an ROA of -59.6, with the Z-score at -14.7 — metrics consistent with a company under severe financial stress. The stock itself has fallen 76% over the past month and is down 88% year-to-date, closing at $3.36 on May 19 after a 9.3% single-day drop. Nasdaq compliance notices — JAGX only recently regained compliance with the exchange's publicly held shares requirement and received an extension until May 18 on the bid price rule — add a structural overhang to an already distressed setup.
One catalyst worth watching into the print: Napo Pharmaceuticals, Jaguar's subsidiary, announced on May 19 that the first patient from a cohort of pediatric MVID patients has entered an active treatment extension study. That clinical update, alongside the company's filing of a Form NT 10-Q (indicating it won't deliver its Q1 quarterly report on time), frames the earnings event as one where investors may get an operational update without a full financial filing — an unusual setup that leaves the fundamental picture unusually opaque.
With no analyst coverage on record, no price target to anchor expectations, and a market cap below $3 million, the May 21 print tests whether any fundamental catalyst can break through against a backdrop of extreme borrow costs, a collapsing share price, and a balance sheet that the data describes as deeply distressed.
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