JSW — Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa — has spent the past week quietly rebuilding momentum, with the stock up 5.3% and borrow availability continuing its steady recovery from extreme tightness, creating a more ambiguous setup than the bearish entrenchment that defined the previous month.
The most notable development is how far the lending market has normalised. Availability has climbed to 46.6% — still tight by any standard, but a dramatic recovery from the 17–19% range that prevailed through late May and a world away from the 52-week low of just 3.9% seen earlier in the year. That loosening trend has been consistent and purposeful: availability has risen almost every session since May 27, tracking the price recovery closely. Cost to borrow has drifted to 8.45% annualised, down roughly 6% on the week and 3% on the month, confirming that the acute demand-side pressure in the borrow market is easing at the margin. The lending pool remains tight in absolute terms — fewer than one share available for every two already borrowed — but the direction of travel has clearly shifted. This is an update from what the June 3 note described as a partial release of the lending squeeze; that release has continued and accelerated.
Short sellers are not exiting in a hurry, though. The ORTEX short score of 74.5 has been remarkably stable over the past two weeks, oscillating in a narrow band between 74.4 and 75.2. That plateau follows a climb from the mid-72s in late April, and the factor scores reinforce how structurally entrenched the bearish case remains: JSW ranks in just the 1st percentile on short score rank, the 8th percentile on days-to-cover, and the 8th on utilization. These are not the readings of a stock where short sellers are losing conviction — they are the readings of a stock where a heavy short position is settling into a holding pattern.
The valuation picture offers limited comfort for bulls. JSW's price-to-book of 0.58x and EV/EBITDA of 2.78x are unambiguously cheap on headline multiples. But the PE is deeply negative — the company is loss-making — and the earnings yield is running at -0.67%. The mean analyst price target of 22.25 PLN sits well below the current price of 29.50 PLN, a gap of roughly 25% to the downside that stands as a significant divergence. That target data was last updated May 27 and carries no recent changes, so it reflects a Street that appears to hold a materially more cautious view of fair value than the current tape implies. The analyst recommendation differential factor score of 95 — near the top of the universe — quantifies just how much more pessimistic the consensus is relative to peers. EPS momentum has been equally discouraging: 30-day and 90-day EPS momentum rank in the 1st and 5th percentiles respectively.
The Polish state remains the dominant shareholder with 55% of shares. That means the genuine free float is narrow, which amplifies the significance of even moderate changes in positioning by the international managers — Vanguard, BlackRock, and Dimensional have all reported small net additions in recent months, though at a scale that barely moves the needle against the state's anchor stake. Insider data is stale, with the most recent filing dating to 2017, so that angle adds nothing to the current picture.
The next scheduled catalyst is Q2 earnings on August 20. Between now and then, what matters most is whether the gradual loosening in borrow availability stabilises or reverses — a re-tightening below 30% would signal that short sellers are rebuilding positions into the price bounce, while a continued drift toward 60–70% availability would suggest the pressure valve has genuinely released.
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