Grupo Simec heads into its May 5 earnings release having shed nearly 10% in a week — yet the short-selling community is moving in the opposite direction from what the price action might suggest.
The clearest story in the data is the dramatic unwinding of short positions. Short interest has collapsed roughly 62% over the past month, falling from around 1,100 shares in mid-March to fewer than 415 shares as of April 28. At just 0.003% of the free float, shorts carry almost no weight here — this is not a stock under siege from bears. The borrow market reflects that reality: availability is effectively wide open, running at 8,600% of outstanding short interest, meaning the lending pool is essentially untapped. Cost to borrow has drifted a little lower on the week to 5.3% and is nearly half what it was a month ago. The brief spike in borrowing activity seen in early April — when availability tightened and the short score touched nearly 40 — has fully unwound.
The ORTEX short score now reads 28.3, easing back from a peak of 39.7 on April 7 and tracking lower through most of April. That earlier spike coincided with peak short interest in the first week of the month — a period that also saw the heaviest price pressure. Since then, shorts have covered aggressively, and the short score has drifted back toward neutral. The data paints a picture of a sharp, tactical short trade — likely macro or tariff-driven — that has been largely closed out.
Analyst and valuation data on this name carries significant caveats. The only recorded analyst action is a Scotiabank downgrade from October 2016, and the sole price target on file — $11.70 — dates to early 2021. With Simec's shares trading at $28.01, that figure is not comparable and should be treated as obsolete. On valuation, the most recent available figures show an EV/EBITDA of around 6.7x, a P/E near 10.8x, and a price-to-book below 1.0x — all consistent with a low-profile, tightly-held Mexican steel producer. Those multiples have drifted modestly higher alongside the price over the past 30 days, though the week's 9.8% slide has begun to reverse that drift.
Ownership tells most of the structural story. Industrias CH, S.A.B. de C.V. holds 82.9% of shares, making this effectively a controlled company with a thin free float. Dimensional Fund Advisors recently added a handful of shares as of March 31, and Renaissance Technologies trimmed a small position in Q4 2025 — but neither move is material. The tightly held structure explains why short interest is structurally so low: there simply isn't much float available to borrow, and the borrow market has reverted to its resting state with availability firmly in surplus.
Earnings arrive May 5. The past three results produced a muted next-day move — a 0.6% decline after February's report, a 2.1% gain after November's, and another small decline in late October — though the five-day reaction after February's print extended to a meaningful 10.8% rally. The week ahead therefore turns less on short positioning, which has unwound, and more on whether the earnings release gives the market fresh reason to re-engage with a name that has been quietly drifting lower for a month.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open SIM 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.
