Chimera Investment Corporation enters its June 10 Q1 earnings call with short sellers meaningfully less aggressive than a month ago — a notable shift for a name that was being leaned on harder through early May.
The clearest story in the positioning data is a sustained short-covering trend. Short interest has dropped 15% over the past month, falling to roughly 2% of the free float — a low level by any measure. The week-on-week move tells a tighter story: shorts edged back up just over 2% in the last session, though the directional pull over the past four weeks has been firmly toward an exit. That pullback is consistent with the borrow market: cost to borrow is now just 0.42%, down sharply from the 1.2–1.4% range seen in late April. The lending pool is enormous — availability runs at roughly 1,763% of short interest, meaning there are nearly 18 shares available to borrow for every one currently borrowed. This is a thoroughly uncrowded short, and the borrow market is offering no friction to anyone who wanted to build a position. The availability figure, while slightly off its 30-day high, remains well above normal. There is simply no squeeze pressure here.
Options traders are a touch more cautious than usual, but not dramatically so. The put/call ratio has climbed to 0.94, modestly above its 20-day average of 0.86 — around three-quarters of a standard deviation above the mean. The PCR has been drifting higher since mid-May, up from the 0.75–0.78 range that prevailed through early May. That shift is consistent with some incremental hedging ahead of the earnings date, but the reading is nowhere near the 1.70 peak seen over the past year. Options positioning looks mildly defensive, not alarmed.
The Street is neutral and has been quiet on CIM. RBC Capital reiterated its Sector Perform rating with a $14 price target as recently as this morning, a level implying modest upside to the current $13.54. One analyst carries a Buy with a $15.50 target — but that price target was trimmed from $16.00 last November when UBS cut it while maintaining the rating. With four analysts holding the stock and consensus sitting at Hold, there is no meaningful upgrade cycle driving sentiment. The price-to-book multiple tells a more interesting valuation story: the stock trades at just 0.46x book — a deep discount for a mortgage REIT that has nonetheless crept higher over the past 30 days as the stock recovered from its April lows. The P/E, at 6.3x trailing, looks attractive in isolation, but the most recent quarterly print showed a GAAP net loss of $43.9 million on revenue of $47 million — a reminder that REIT earnings metrics need careful interpretation against distributable income, not headline net income.
The most recent insider cluster worth noting dates from February. The CEO sold $1.74 million of stock, the CFO sold $710,000, and the CIO and Chief Legal Officer both trimmed positions — all on the same day at $13.70. Those trades followed stock awards granted in January, suggesting the sales were at least partly planned compensation-related activity. The $13.70 exit price is modestly above the current $13.54, which frames the insider sales as close to market — not a distressed exit, but not a ringing endorsement either. There has been no reported insider activity since February.
Among peers, CIM's relative resilience continues. Close correlated names like NLY and AGNC have each slipped 1.4% and 2.2% respectively over the past week, while MFA fell nearly 1%. CIM managed a 0.5% gain over the same stretch. Whether that outperformance persists into the June 10 earnings call — where the last comparable print produced a flat day-one reaction followed by a 2.4% slide over five days — is the next meaningful test for the stock.
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