JSW — Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa — has given back last week's gains with unusual speed: the stock dropped 11.5% over the past week to PLN 25.92, erasing the 5.3% recovery that the June 8 note flagged as a tentative sign of stabilisation, and putting the price back near its most stressed levels of the recent cycle.
The borrow market tells a story that runs contrary to the price move — but not in a reassuring way. Availability, which had climbed steadily from the extreme tightness of late May, has now reversed course again. After peaking near 46.6% in early June, it has retreated to 34.4% — still a long way from the 52-week low of roughly 4.9%, but moving in the wrong direction for a stock already under pressure. Cost to borrow has eased from 8.5% to 7.0% annualised over the past week, down about 16%, which might seem like good news; in practice it reflects short sellers sitting on existing positions rather than aggressively adding new ones. The ORTEX short score has held near its recent plateau at 74.9, consistent with deeply embedded short positioning that has not meaningfully unwound despite weeks of borrow loosening. Together, the data reads as a market where shorts are comfortable holding, new entrants face a tighter borrow pool than a week ago, and the price has validated the bearish thesis all over again.
The valuation picture offers little comfort for bulls. The price-to-book ratio has compressed to 0.50, down roughly 7% on the week, meaning the stock now trades at half its book value. The EV/EBITDA multiple sits at 2.5x — deeply cheap in isolation, but the PE is deeply negative and EPS momentum ranks in the bottom 1st percentile on both 30- and 90-day windows, suggesting the earnings power underpinning that apparent cheapness is deteriorating. The ORTEX factor score for analyst recommendation differential sits at the 95th percentile — an unusually high reading that in this context reflects a wide gap between where analysts think the stock should be priced and where it actually trades, rather than an endorsement of the business. Analyst data carries a caveat: the most recent consensus, with a mean price target around PLN 22.2, is just over two weeks old and predates the latest leg down, so the implied upside figure should be treated with caution.
Ownership here is dominated by the Polish State Treasury at 55% of shares, which effectively caps the free float and amplifies the impact of even modest institutional flow. Among non-state holders, American Century has been the most active recent buyer, adding around 56,000 shares through late May. That flow is modest relative to the overall position, but it stands out as one of the few instances of a fund manager moving in a meaningful direction while most other holders have been static.
The earnings calendar marks August 20 as the next scheduled event. The most recent print in May saw the stock fall 2.4% on the day before recovering 8.3% over the following five sessions — a pattern worth tracking if the current bearish setup holds into summer. With borrow availability resuming its tightening trajectory and the short score anchored near 75, the dynamic to watch is whether the borrow pool continues to contract toward the extreme readings of late May or stabilises at current levels as short sellers weigh their next move.
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