Short Selling: Syrah Resources, Deep Yellow and Seven West shorts are on the rise

Welcome back to the Short Seller Series – A recap of the most heavily shorted stocks on the ASX as well as the stocks experiencing significant changes to short interest over the past week.

Short selling data is four days behind today's date because reporting is not mandatory until three business days after the trade. The tables below compare:

• Week-on-week (WoW % Chg) short interest changes between 6 Feb and 13 Feb

• Month-on-month (MoM) % Chg) changes between 13 Feb and 16 Jan

• The rising and falling short interest ranks stocks based on largest WoW change.

Most Shorted

Key themes and takeaways:

• Pilbara Minerals, Syrah Resources and Core Lithium remain the top three most shorted stocks on the market since late November 2023

• Syrah's short interest has bounced back towards record levels after a brief pullback to 16.85% on 12 February. The stock has rallied almost 60% this month but still down around 8% year-to-date

• Deep Yellow shorts are also on the rise again. Surging uranium prices pushed back short interest from 10.5% in early January to 8.5% in late January. The short thesis for Deep Yellow likely rests on hopes of a capital raise to support the development of its flagship Tumas project. Deep Yellow reported $32 million cash on hand in the September quarter, with quarterly cash burn averaging $13.5 million. The Tumas project has a capex bill of US$360 million.

Rising Shorts

Key themes and takeaways:

• Seven West Media shorts will likely get burned after the company smashed first-half earnings expectations, showcasing a strong outperformance across its key business segments – WesTrac, Coates and Boral. The stock finished the results session (14-Feb) up 7.0% and rallied 4.4% the next day.

• Strike Energy shares plummeted 25% on 13 February after announcing the unexpected failure of its South Erregulla-3 well. Separately, the company joined the ASX 200 on 9 February, replacing Costa Group. Short interest began to climb the week before its ASX 200 inclusion, rising from around 2.5% to 3.5%, and intensified further after the well update.

Most Covered

Key themes and takeaways:

• Shorts are unwinding in post-cap raise names like Galan Lithium (raised $19.5m on 31 Jan) and Silver Mines (raised $10 million on 5 Feb)

• Short interest is also easing in stocks under takeover offers, notably Costa Group (shares currently suspended and set to be removed from official quotation) and Silver Lake (received a merger offer from Silver Lake on 5 Feb)