TECK.B has had one of its strongest months in recent memory, and the question now is whether the metal market tailwind is enough to sustain the run.
The stock closed at C$97.69 on June 2 — up 4% on the day, 8.5% on the week, and nearly 24% over the past month. Peers moved sharply in the same direction. FM rose 18% on the week, HBM gained 20%, and NGEX added 19%. AAL on the London Stock Exchange and ANTO climbed 8% and 8.2% respectively. This was a base-metals sector move, not a Teck-specific re-rating — copper pricing and broader commodity optimism lifted the whole group in tandem.
The lending market tells a story of total indifference to the rally from the short side. Availability is extraordinarily loose at roughly 7,730% — meaning the pool of shares available to borrow dwarfs actual short demand by a factor of more than 77. That figure is well above even the 52-week minimum availability level of 1,082%, itself already a deeply unconstrained reading. Short interest is minimal at 0.75% of the free float, and while it has drifted about 20% higher over the past month in share terms, the absolute level remains negligible. Cost to borrow has been erratic — briefly touching 1.07% on May 27 before easing back to 0.41% — but consistently reflects a generic, easy-to-borrow name. There is no short-side pressure, no squeeze tension, and no meaningful positioning driving the price move.
What makes the insider activity worth noting is the breadth of the selling. Teck's Chairman Emeritus, Norman Bell Keevil, sold 60,000 shares on May 26 at C$89.87, generating roughly C$5.4M in proceeds and representing a 1.37M-share addition to Keevil Holding Corp's recent position. The HR Director, Dean Winsor, conducted multiple tranches of sales on May 29 totalling around 45,000 shares across the C$90.75–C$90.93 range, with an aggregate value just under C$3M. Two Executive Vice Presidents also sold in late May. Taken together, the 90-day net insider position remains in positive territory — the headline net-buy figure is positive in share-count terms — but the cluster of executive sales through late May came squarely into the price strength, not ahead of it.
On the institutional side, the ownership picture shows a mixed recent flow. UBS Asset Management added nearly 6.9M shares in the most recent filing period, while Vanguard Capital Management initiated a position of 13.2M shares. China Investment Corporation trimmed by 7.6M shares in Q1. FMR (Fidelity) added 3.8M shares. The holder count of 247 institutions across a broad range of geographies suggests no single-entity concentration risk, though CIC's continued reduction is worth monitoring given its size relative to free float.
Factor scores add context to the stock's position within the sector. The EPS surprise rank of 86 and 90-day EPS momentum of 76 point to an improving earnings trajectory, while the dividend score of 94 reflects the payout structure relative to history — though the dividend data itself is stale, with the last recorded distribution from mid-2022. On valuation, the P/E has expanded to 22.2x, up more than 4.6 points over the past 30 days, and EV/EBITDA has moved to 7.96x. Neither is demanding for a metals company in a copper upcycle, but the re-rating is real. The short score of 26.85 has been nearly flat for two weeks, consistent with a market that views Teck as a momentum name rather than a short candidate.
The most interesting catalyst on the near-term horizon is a Trump administration plan — reported at maximum importance on June 3 — for a $700M push to build coal plants and an export site. Given Teck's historical exposure to metallurgical coal through steelmaking and its Q1 transition away from that business, the degree to which this headline intersects with Teck's current asset mix versus legacy perceptions of the company is the dynamic worth watching into the July 23 earnings call.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open TECK.B 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.
