NILI heads into its May 6 results with a compelling internal signal: insiders have been buying steadily for months, and short sellers are now unwinding fast.
The insider picture is the clearest story here. Over the past 90 days, insiders accumulated a net 6.04 million shares worth roughly C$3.65 million combined — every transaction a buy, none a sale. Chairman Graham Harris led the charge, purchasing across five separate transactions from early February through mid-March at prices ranging from C$0.55 to C$0.76. President and CEO Gregory Reimer added to his position twice, most recently on March 18. Then on April 24 — the most recent trade on record — the company's largest individual shareholder, Ross Jennings, acquired another 300,000 shares at C$0.63. That kind of broad, sustained insider buying from the chairman, the CEO, and the biggest holder simultaneously is unusual, and the stock's 28% gain over the past month suggests at least some of the market has taken notice.
Short sellers are retreating in parallel. Estimated short interest has dropped by 32% over the past week and 39% over the past month, falling to roughly 0.42% of the free float. That's a negligible level — and a sharp reversal from early April, when shorts peaked near 1.9 million estimated shares around April 7-9. The unwind has been orderly rather than forced. Borrow availability remains moderate — lending pool availability sits well above the tight threshold — and cost to borrow hovers around 2.98%, well below levels that would signal a squeeze. The ORTEX short score of 45.5 ranks in just the 17th percentile of the broader universe, consistent with a stock where short pressure is fading rather than building. The peak utilization of 94.5% seen earlier this year now looks like a distant memory; current availability is far looser.
On the fundamental and Street side, the picture is thin but not empty. The two analyst buy ratings on record are now 63 days old — too stale to carry weight — so the analyst angle is essentially absent this week. Valuation multiples are loss-making given the company is a pre-revenue lithium explorer, so traditional ratios don't apply. What matters more is project momentum: April's news flow included the JV partner contributing C$2.1 million to the Nevada North Lithium project and the commencement of prefeasibility metallurgical testing. Those are operational milestones for a junior miner, not earnings beats — but they explain both the insider confidence and the stock's recovery from its February lows near C$0.51.
The peer context adds nuance. Correlated names like NGEX, PPTA, and ABAT all fell between 6% and 14% on the week, while SLI slipped nearly 6%. NILI gained 4.6% over the same period — a meaningful divergence for a junior miner in a sector that broadly sold off. That relative outperformance, alongside the insider buying and short covering, gives the week a distinctly different flavour than the broader critical minerals space.
Earnings on May 6 will be the next focal point. The past four prints all produced negative first-day reactions, with drops of 2% to 7%, though three of those four saw meaningful recoveries by the five-day mark — including a 28% bounce after the November 2025 announcement. Whether that pattern repeats will depend on any update to the Nevada North Lithium prefeasibility timeline and the status of the partnership discussions referenced in mid-April headlines.
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