SunCoke Energy has become one of the steel sector's more intriguing setups: a stock that has surged 38% in a single month is now attracting a measurably larger short position, even as the borrow market remains wide open.
The most notable tension this week sits in the short interest build. Short sellers have added significantly over the past month — the estimated position has climbed 51% over 30 days to reach 4.0% of the free float. That is a meaningful build against the backdrop of a stock running hard. Over the past week alone, shorts rose 5.6% before pulling back 2.1% on Tuesday. Yet the borrow market tells a story of little conviction: cost to borrow is a negligible 0.51%, up 17% on the week but still firmly in "easy" territory. Availability is effectively unlimited at nearly 2,900% — meaning there are roughly 29 shares available to lend for every one currently borrowed. The shorts are rebuilding, but the lending market is giving no sense of urgency or compression.
Options add a wrinkle. The put/call ratio has moved to 0.14, which sounds low — and it is — but it is running more than two standard deviations above its 20-day mean of 0.13. That means the small uptick in put buying is statistically notable relative to the recent baseline, even if the absolute level remains call-dominated. Options traders are barely hedging, but they are hedging slightly more than they were. The ORTEX short score of 35 is moderate and has been stable across the past two weeks, with no sign of acceleration.
The Street view on SXC is dated. The most recent analyst action on record was B. Riley Securities lowering its target from $10 to $9 and maintaining a Neutral in February — more than 100 days ago, well past the threshold where the data carries current weight. The consensus mean price target of $9.50 is now fractionally below the current price of $9.60, suggesting the stock has simply outrun what analysts were prepared to model at the start of the year. On fundamentals, EV/EBITDA is running at roughly 4.9x on estimated figures, with an enterprise value near $1.16 billion against $239 million in expected EBITDA. Revenue estimates point to $1.81 billion. The dividend score ranks in the 91st percentile, though the last actual dividend was paid in 2022 — the score likely reflects prior history rather than an active yield.
Institutional ownership is concentrated and largely passive. BlackRock holds nearly 10% and added modestly in April. State Street added 375,000 shares in the same period. The more active move came from Balyasny, which built a position of 2.4 million shares — adding 1.6 million of those in Q1. Tontine Management added 605,000 shares. These are not panic buys; they read as deliberate accumulation into the prior weakness, ahead of the current rally. Insider data is stale at nearly 100 days old, but the most recent activity showed the CFO and a Senior Vice President both purchasing shares in late February around $5.80 — well below current levels — alongside the CEO receiving a stock award. Those open-market buys near multi-year lows now look well-timed.
Among peers, AMR has been the standout this week, up 13% and HCC surged 18.5%. MTUS gained 3.7% while RS and CMC each added around 4%. SXC's 8.2% week is solid but sits toward the lower end of the peer group's range — the bigger momentum names in the coal and steel complex are still outrunning it. Earnings are next scheduled for July 31, and after Q1 delivered a one-day dip of 2% that recovered to a five-day gain of nearly 4%, the pattern from recent prints has been a quick shakeout followed by a bounce.
What to watch is whether the short interest build continues to accelerate as the stock presses higher, and whether the borrow cost — still essentially free — starts to reflect any genuine urgency from bears facing a stock that has more than doubled off its February lows.
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