AXG heads into its June 30 earnings date with a notably split signal — shorts are rapidly unwinding even as the cost to borrow remains high, and the stock continues to drift lower.
The most striking move in the data this week is how fast short sellers have pulled back. Short interest has fallen by 56% over the past month, dropping from roughly 646,000 shares in mid-April to just 286,000 now. At 0.18% of the free float, the absolute level is negligible — this isn't a heavily shorted name. But the pace of the unwind is worth noting. In the last week alone, short positioning dropped nearly 29%. Whatever short-side thesis existed in late April has been largely abandoned.
The borrow market tells a more nuanced story, however. Despite the sharp drop in short interest, the cost to borrow remains elevated — running at 23.4% annualised, which is steep for a stock this lightly shorted. That's down from a peak above 39% in mid-April, and down roughly 21% on the week, but it remains well above what a sub-0.2% short float would normally command. Availability is tight at 35.6%, meaning for every 100 shares currently borrowed, only about 36 remain in the lending pool. The 52-week low for availability was just 2%, reached earlier this cycle — the current level represents a relative loosening, but borrow remains constrained enough to keep borrowing costs above the norm. The ORTEX short score of 57.2 and a utilization-rank percentile of just 3 reflect this peculiar state: the headline short interest is low, but the borrow dynamics are still charged.
Ownership structure adds important context here. The float is exceptionally concentrated. The top two holders — Ling Ngai Lok and Firewood Group Limited — together control roughly 64% of shares. Another handful of named individuals account for several more percentage points. That leaves a genuinely thin tradeable float, which explains why even modest short positioning translates into elevated borrow costs and tight availability. Morgan Stanley entered a position of around 857,000 shares as of March 31, a new build, though at 0.45% of total shares it remains small.
Earnings history for AXG adds another dimension. The last four reported events have shown sharp, volatile reactions. The December 2024 print saw a 38.5% gain on the day and a 42.4% gain over the following five days. The June 2025 result also moved the stock up 8.4% on the day and 28.8% over the week. January 2026's release went the other way — down 7.2% on the day. With the next event set for June 30, the earnings-day reaction here has ranged from -7% to +39% across four prior events. That's an unusually wide distribution for any stock, let alone one with a market cap in the $550 million range.
What to watch next: whether the cost to borrow continues to ease as short interest falls further, and how the availability picture evolves in the weeks ahead of the June 30 earnings date — particularly given how violently the stock has historically moved around those events.
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