KOF enters May in a rare position for any name in the consumer staples universe: short sellers are actively retreating, the earnings scorecard is outstanding, and the Street has been quietly marking targets higher.
Short interest has collapsed over the past month. KOF's SI % of FF was already modest, but it has fallen more than 60% in 30 days — from roughly 460,000 shares shorted in mid-March to under 180,000 today, below 0.1% of the float. That is not a crowded short; it is barely a rounding error. The most dramatic step-down arrived in the week of April 14, when shorts were cut almost in half in two sessions. Nothing in the borrow market suggests a squeeze drove it — availability is running near 2,280% of short interest, meaning the lending pool is overwhelmingly untapped, and days to cover is just 1.22. This looks like deliberate position reduction, not a forced unwind.
The borrow cost tells an oddly contradictory story. Despite the sharp drop in short interest, cost to borrow has tripled over the past month to 1.63%, with a noisy intraday spike to 4.43% on April 20 before normalising. When short interest is this small, even minor swings in borrow demand can move the cost disproportionately. The overall signal from the lending market is clear: with availability near 2,300% and shorts at multi-month lows, there is no meaningful short-side pressure on KOF right now.
Options positioning is equally calm. The put/call ratio is running at 0.38, effectively in line with its 20-day average of 0.38. There is no meaningful skew toward downside protection; options traders are neither anxious nor euphoric. The 52-week range on the PCR spans from 0.06 to 1.19, so the current reading sits well within normal territory.
The most compelling part of the KOF story this week is on the fundamentals side. The EPS surprise score ranks at the 99th percentile across the universe — meaning the company has been beating estimates almost without exception. The 12-month forward EPS growth estimate ranks at the 97th percentile, and the 90-day EPS momentum score is at the 89th percentile. That is an unusually strong three-factor alignment on earnings quality. The dividend score (84th percentile) adds another layer: a $0.99 per share dividend was announced in early April, paid on April 20. The stock has gained 5.8% over the past month to $101.08, well below the analyst consensus target of $115.11, implying roughly 14% upside to the Street's central case.
Analyst direction has been net-positive. JP Morgan raised its target to $110 in mid-April while holding a Neutral rating. Goldman Sachs lifted its target to $111 in February, keeping a Buy. Barclays nudged its Equal-Weight target to $112 in early March. The sole negative move this quarter was UBS stepping down to Neutral from Buy in March. The collective posture from major desks is constructive on value but measured on near-term momentum. EV/EBITDA of 6.9x and a P/E of 13.1x are undemanding for a business with a 99th-percentile earnings beat record.
The ownership structure is also worth noting, as it shapes how the float behaves. Parent FEMSA holds 47% of shares, and KO — which gained almost 5% on the week — holds another 28%. Together they leave just roughly 25% in the free float, which partly explains why short interest has always been structurally low. Among institutional holders, BlackRock added 332,000 shares in the most recent quarter and State Street added 142,000, both incremental confirmations of index and active demand. Closely correlated peer MNST gained 2.6% on the week, while TAP slipped 2.4%, highlighting that beverage sector performance has been uneven — KOF's resilience looks more idiosyncratic than sector-driven.
With next earnings scheduled for July 22, the next test for KOF is whether the earnings beat streak — and the forward EPS revision trend that underpins it — holds through a quarter in which MXN/USD dynamics and Mexico volume trends will dominate the conversation.
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