CAS, the Québec-based packaging group, enters its May 7 earnings call with a striking split in its borrow market: short interest nudged higher on the week while the cost of borrowing shares just hit its lowest level in months.
The clearest signal right now is what has happened to borrowing costs. The cost to borrow collapsed to 0.81% by April 28 — down more than 70% from a mid-April peak of 3.28% and down 56% over the past month. That is not a squeeze setup. It points to shorts either covering into the print or an easing of demand to initiate new positions. At the same time, availability remains extremely loose. Utilization is only around 2% — a fraction of the 52-week high of 14.4% — meaning the lending pool has plenty of room for new positions if sentiment sours after the release.
Short interest itself tells a mixed story. At 0.82% of the free float, the absolute level is low. But it rose 11.4% on the week, driven by a spike into mid-week before partially easing. The one-month trend runs in the opposite direction — down 17% — so the weekly uptick looks more like tactical repositioning ahead of May 7 than a fresh structural bear case. The ORTEX short score of 34 is unremarkable, ranking in the lower third of the universe. Positioning looks cautious rather than charged.
The Street has been mildly constructive. The consensus sits at "Moderate Buy," with a mean analyst price target of approximately C$14.08 — roughly 32% above the current price of C$10.68. Scotiabank published revised estimates in the third week of April, flagging a bearish lean on FY2026 earnings while also updating FY2027 numbers, and at least one Globe analyst maintained a buy rating as recently as April 17. The valuation picture is lean: the stock trades at a P/E of 8.5x and a price-to-book below 0.6x, both of which have drifted lower over the past month. The EV/EBITDA of 5.1x has edged up slightly over 30 days, which matters here because the EV/EBIT factor ranks in the 80th percentile — the most compelling score in the factor deck. EPS momentum is poor, ranking in the bottom 15% on both 30- and 90-day horizons, and the dividend score at the 96th percentile is largely irrelevant given the company has not paid a dividend since 2022.
Ownership is dominated by the founding Lemaire family, with Laurent, Alain, Sylvie, and Patrick Lemaire collectively controlling roughly 22% of shares. Letko Brosseau, a long-standing Quebec institutional holder, added over 750,000 shares in Q1 to reach 12.5% of the company. The most recent insider transaction was a modest open-market purchase of 3,500 shares by founder Laurent Lemaire at C$11.67 at the end of March — a small but directional signal from the family at prices above where the stock trades today.
The last two earnings releases produced negative day-one reactions. The February 2026 result saw the stock fall 5.4% on the day and a further 3.6% over the following week. The earlier February event was softer at -1.6%. The pattern is consistent: the market has sold the announcement. Close peers had a volatile week — IP and PKG each gained more than 4% on Tuesday, while AMCR and WPK both closed lower. That divergence across the packaging space underscores the absence of a clear sector tailwind into the Cascades print. The combination of a collapsing cost to borrow, a low-and-rising short position, and back-to-back negative earnings reactions makes the May 7 release the clearest near-term catalyst to watch.
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