Cogeco Communications heads into the final days of April with a notable reset in short positioning — a 48% weekly jump in short interest that arrives against a backdrop of a stock already down 10% in a month.
The dominant story this week is the sudden acceleration in bearish positioning. Short interest climbed 48% over seven days to 849,439 shares, now representing 2.8% of the free float. The move is clear in the history: shorts held roughly flat at 572,000 shares through mid-April, then stepped up decisively around April 21. That level is still moderate in absolute terms, but the pace of change is unusual for a Canadian telecom name that rarely attracts this kind of attention. Days-to-cover has risen to 3.8, adding a small but real friction element for anyone looking to unwind quickly.
The lending market is sending mixed signals. Borrowing costs have doubled over the week to 1.14%, though they remain well off the spike to 5% seen on April 7 — itself a brief dislocation rather than a sustained regime change. Availability is loose enough that this isn't a constrained borrow situation. The short score at 37 sits in roughly the 38th percentile of the universe, and the recent uptick has been gradual rather than dramatic. The picture here is of a market that is rebuilding a short position deliberately, not chasing a squeeze or forcing a borrow.
The broader backdrop reinforces the cautious tone. The stock closed at CAD 62.69 on April 28, flat on the day but down 0.7% on the week and 10.5% over the past month. Its closest peer, , fell almost in lockstep — down 0.8% on the week — while on Nasdaq bucked the trend with an 8% weekly gain, underlining that the weakness here is specific to the Canadian cable/telecom complex rather than a broad sector rotation. Analyst consensus is a hold from eight covering analysts, with a mean price target around CAD 73.5 — a meaningful premium to current levels — but the most recent change was logged in mid-April, and the broader analyst data is at the threshold of staleness, so that gap deserves scepticism rather than comfort.
On valuation, the stock trades at a P/E of 7.5 and an EV/EBITDA near 5.5, both of which have compressed over the past 30 days. The P/B ratio of 0.67 reflects a market pricing in sustained pressure on the business. The factor score picture is split: the stock ranks well on analyst recommendation divergence (92nd percentile) and dividend quality (92nd), but both of those signals look backward-looking given that the dividend history in the data runs only to early 2022 and the recent price action implies the yield-support argument is being tested.
Institutional ownership is relatively concentrated. Gestion Audem holds 28.6% of shares — a strategic block that limits the effective tradeable float and amplifies the signal from even modest short-interest moves. BlackRock added over 1.1 million shares in Q1 2026, a notable build. Insider activity is quiet: the most recent registered transaction was a VP sale of roughly 2,600 shares in late February at CAD 73.59 — well above where the stock trades today. No CEO or CFO purchases appear in the recent record.
The most recent earnings prints are worth noting. On April 10, the stock fell 7.3% on the day and finished five days later down 4.4%. An earlier event on April 9 produced a sharper 9.9% single-day decline. Two consecutive negative reactions of that magnitude help explain why shorts rebuilt into the current range, and why the borrow market attracted more activity starting the week of April 21. With no confirmed upcoming earnings date in the data, the next catalyst to watch is any guidance or trading update from management, and whether the CAD 73.5 analyst target consensus begins to drift lower as the gap to the current price widens.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open CCA on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
