Frontier Lithium is navigating a sharp reset: a C$15 million bought deal priced in early April has triggered a near-vertical climb in short positions, even as the stock slides toward C$0.62 — a 19% drop over the past month.
The most striking development in the data is the sheer speed of the short-interest build. Short interest as a percentage of free float was running below 0.3% through late March. By April 13 it had jumped to 1.1%. It peaked near 2.0% around April 23 before easing to 1.55% on April 28. That is more than a five-fold increase in under four weeks, almost certainly linked to deal participants hedging their bought-deal exposure following the C$15 million prospectus offering announced April 9. The borrow market moved in lockstep — cost to borrow surged from around 4% in early April to a peak of nearly 15% on April 22, before dropping sharply to 5.7% by April 28. That easing in borrow cost suggests some of the deal-related hedging pressure is unwinding, though availability remains extremely tight with utilization above 96% — only a sliver of the lending pool remains unused.
The ORTEX short score of 65.9 reflects that ongoing pressure, though it has edged back from its week-high of 69.2 reached April 23. Days to cover from the most recent official FINRA filing runs at 13.2 days — a figure that underlines how thinly traded the stock is relative to the short book now sitting against it. Factor scores back up the bearish lean: both the short-score rank and utilization rank are in the bottom 2nd percentile of the universe, signalling that the borrow market is among the most stretched of any name covered.
The Street angle is limited here — the sole available analyst data carries a mean price target of C$1.40 against a current price of C$0.62, but that data is more than 21 days old and sits above the staleness threshold; it should not be read as a fresh view. What the ownership picture does reveal is that insiders hold meaningful stakes. Reginald Walker alone controls 12.25% of shares outstanding, with no reported change. Picton Mahoney Asset Management added 981,828 shares as of end-December, and ATB Investment Management added 201,800 shares over the same period — both moves were made before the April dilution. Against that backdrop, Director Greg Mills stepped in on April 21 with a modest open-market purchase of 20,000 shares at C$0.75. The size is small — roughly C$15,000 — but it is the only insider buy in the recent record and came close to the borrow-cost peak, suggesting at least one board member viewed the sell-off as overdone.
The earnings history shows the stock has tended to move modestly around results — a roughly 7% gain on the day of the most recent February 2026 print, followed by a 3% fade over five days. The next event is not scheduled until late July, leaving the near-term story as one of supply absorption from the bought deal rather than a fundamental catalyst.
What to watch is how quickly the short-interest build continues to unwind now that borrow costs have eased — and whether the availability of shares to borrow tightens further or begins to loosen as deal-related hedges are lifted.
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