PETR4 heads into the week with a striking divergence: the stock has shed nearly 10% over the past month while the borrow market has simultaneously swung to its most relaxed reading of the year.
The lending story is the most unusual data point this week. Availability has surged to essentially uncapped levels — the 52-week low for availability was 276%, and last week's reading was running around 2,400%, but by June 9 the figure had blown out to the maximum reportable level, meaning the pool of shares available to borrow now dwarfs what is actually shorted by an almost immeasurable margin. Utilization — the share of that pool actually lent out — fell from around 8.6% in late May to just 0.7% by June 9. That is a collapse in borrowing demand, not a squeeze. Cost to borrow confirms the story: at 0.76%, it remains low and has barely moved in weeks, touching a high of around 1.0% briefly in early April before easing back. The short score has also dropped steadily, from 28.3 two weeks ago to 25.2 today, placing PETR4 in the 89th percentile of stocks least at risk from short pressure — a reading that supports the narrative of bears stepping back.
The Street angle is complicated by stale analyst data. The most recent recorded price target of BRL 46.77 dates to March 2025, more than a year ago, and should not be treated as current guidance — it is cited here for reference only. On valuation, the picture is unambiguously cheap: the P/E trades around 4x, EV/EBITDA is below 3x, and price-to-book is just above 1x. All three multiples have drifted lower over the past 30 days as the share price has fallen. The earnings yield — effectively the inverse of the P/E — runs at roughly 25%, and the dividend score ranks in the 97th percentile globally. The April 2026 dividend was a modest BRL 0.013 per share, a sharp step down from the BRL 0.31 paid in December 2025, which itself was well below the BRL 2.9–3.4 distributions seen in 2022. That compression in the payout is one visible source of investor frustration.
Institutional positioning tells a more nuanced story beneath the surface. GQG Partners added approximately 77.7 million shares in the most recent reported period, bringing its stake to 8.5% of shares outstanding. BlackRock added a similar 72.4 million shares to reach nearly 5.9%. Capital Research and Management added 59.8 million shares. These are not small adjustments — three global managers collectively added over 200 million shares in recent months, a signal that the discount is drawing in long-only buyers even as the price continues to slide. On the other side, BNDESPAR — the state development bank's investment arm and the third-largest holder — trimmed 118.8 million shares, reducing its stake to 7.1%. That kind of state-related selling can weigh on sentiment independent of fundamentals.
Energy peers broadly declined on the week, offering limited relative comfort. TTE was nearly flat on the week and ENI edged slightly positive, showing European integrated majors held up better than most. BP. fell around 1.2% on the week while CHRD dropped 2.8%, putting PETR4's roughly 1% weekly decline in the middle of the pack for oil names. The underperformance relative to peers is more visible on the one-month and year-to-date frames, where the Brazil-specific discount continues to widen. Q1 earnings in May produced a one-day drop of 4% and the five-day reaction was almost flat, consistent with a pattern of sell-the-news responses. The next earnings date falls on August 6 — and between now and then, the key variable to track is whether the dividend trajectory shows any sign of recovery, since that is the metric most directly connected to the gap between the current price and where the large institutional buyers appear to see value.
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