Technip Energies has extended its rebound to €37.48, up another 5% on the week — but the borrow market has quietly moved in the opposite direction, with cost to borrow doubling from where the last note found it.
The lending picture is the key development to track this week. After fully normalising to 0.70% by May 22, borrowing costs have climbed back to 1.43% by May 26 — double the prior reading and the highest level outside the brief May 19 spike. That May 19 reading (4.33%) was anomalous and short-lived, consistent with a loan-desk restructuring around Bpifrance's block. This new move is quieter but more durable: costs have been rising steadily since May 22 without any obvious single-day catalyst. Availability remains extraordinarily loose at over 8,100%, so there is no lending constraint — the rise in cost to borrow is not a squeeze dynamic. It looks more like incremental short demand rebuilding against a stock that has recovered 5% in a week.
Short positioning, however, tells a calm story. The short score has barely moved, edging up from 27.4 to 27.5 between May 25 and May 26. It has held in a narrow band of 27–28 for the past two weeks, down from a brief 30.4 reading on May 20. That single-day elevation has not been followed through, confirming that no fresh wave of aggressive short-selling has materialised. The 30-day cost-to-borrow change of 92% sounds dramatic in percentage terms, but in absolute terms borrowing sits at 1.43% — still modest for a stock in this sector. The short score ranks in the 85th percentile of the factor universe, which reflects relative positioning rather than an extreme crowded short.
The Street remains constructively positioned, though the data does not offer fresh catalysts this week. The mean analyst target of €44.24 implies roughly 18% upside from current levels — a gap that has compressed from the 24% discount noted in earlier notes as the stock has recovered. The PE trades at 13.8x, down marginally over the past 30 days, and the EV/EBITDA of 5.6x has drifted slightly higher over the same period. Factor scores show a notable divergence: the dividend score ranks in the 96th percentile, forward EPS growth ranks at 77, and the EV/EBIT ratio at 76 — all pointing to a reasonably valued, income-generating business. Against that, EPS momentum at the 20th percentile signals analysts are still trimming near-term estimates, a theme flagged in the stock score note from May 22.
The institutional picture carries one fresh wrinkle. Bpifrance, already reduced to 8.1% after the €163m block sale on May 7, has not reported any further movement. But the state bank's lingering 8.1% stake remains an overhang the market is still pricing around — any further disposal would almost certainly reprice borrow costs and pressure availability again. On the other side, BlackRock added 105,000 shares and JP Morgan Asset Management added 107,000 as of April 30, suggesting institutional buyers have been absorbing the supply. The CEO's May 21 sale of 106,000 shares at €35.84 — documented in the prior note — becomes slightly more interesting in retrospect: Pieton sold into what was then a partial recovery, and the stock has since added another €1.60 above that level.
After last quarter's earnings, TE fell 4.1% on the day and 6.2% over the following five sessions. The next scheduled event is July 30 — about nine weeks out — which keeps earnings risk off the immediate agenda. With the prior borrow spike fully explained, positioning muted, and the stock now 5% off its recent low, the question for the coming sessions is whether the fresh uptick in borrowing costs represents systematic rebuilding of short interest or simply a higher clearing rate on thin volumes.
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