Frequency Electronics heads into the final day of April with a sharp contradiction: a stock that rallied hard through the month but gave back most of those gains in a single week, while short sellers quietly rebuilt positions to their highest levels since early April.
The short interest story is the week's defining tension. SI % FF has climbed to 13.0% of the free float — up from roughly 9.3% in late March, a 40% increase over the past month. The pace of that rebuild is notable. Shorts were light through late March, then stepped in aggressively after April 9, pushing the position from around 11.7% to a peak of 13.5% by April 10 before easing slightly to the current 13.0%. That level ranks among the highest readings of the past six weeks, and the ORTEX short score has held a steady 65-66 range all month, pointing to structurally elevated short conviction rather than a short-term tactical bet. Official FINRA data, settled April 15, put the exchange-reported short position at 929,128 shares with days-to-cover of 4.44 — consistent with the estimated picture.
The borrow market, however, offers little friction for new shorts. Availability remains loose, and cost to borrow is running at just 0.55% annualised — barely above its monthly trough, despite a 13% tick higher on the week. That figure is well inside general collateral territory. The lending pool is far from tight. Borrow availability has not been a constraint on the short build. Options traders, meanwhile, are less defensive than their recent history would imply. The put/call ratio is 0.61, about three-quarters of a standard deviation below its 20-day average of 0.67, and materially below the year-to-date high of 0.80 recorded in late March. That shift towards calls is a partial counterweight to the short rebuild — it suggests at least some participants positioned for upside from current levels.
The Street is thinly covered on this name, and the available analyst data is stale by more than six weeks, so it should be treated cautiously. The most recent move on record has Freedom Broker maintaining a Hold rating with a $60 target, raised from $42 in January 2026. Craig-Hallum initiated with a Buy and a $43 target in September 2025. With the stock at $47.17, the $59 consensus mean represents roughly 25% implied upside — though the target is now 45 days old and predates the recent price volatility. Edenbrook Capital remains the dominant institutional presence with a 19% stake, unchanged as of December 2025. Driehaus Capital and Next Century Growth both built new positions in Q4 2025, adding 313,000 and 146,000 shares respectively, which points to conviction at lower price levels from active managers. Silvercrest initiated an entirely new position of 130,000 shares in the same period.
The most relevant historical data point is the March 11 earnings release, where the stock dropped 13.8% in a single session and extended the loss to 21.5% over five days. The quarter before that reversed sharply in the opposite direction, with a 33% one-day gain. That kind of binary reaction profile matters here: with the next earnings date flagged for July 15, the current short rebuild from the 9% range all the way to 13% of free float is a meaningful directional statement ahead of that event. The stock is down 12.3% on the week to $47.17, despite an 8.6% gain over the prior month — erasing most of the April bounce in three sessions.
The July 15 print is the focal point worth tracking: whether the short rebuild continues toward the 13.5% peak seen earlier in April, and whether call-side options activity persists against the grain of that short positioning, will tell much about how the market is handicapping the next earnings outcome.
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