Pinned straw:
Yeah @lowway
Been following the press - and it's getting to a really exciting point in things in terms of the still very large short position in PLS (14.85% & still 3rd most shorted on ASX), versus the rapidly improving pricing & sentiment in Lithium markets. End result could be explosive if shorts' get forced to exit all together.
I've trimmed position slightly at low 2-30's to take a little profit, but still got reasonable position to see how things unfold from here.
Even perma-bear UBS just updated its price target from sell to $2.30+ neutral this week.
Couple of interesting other articles / recent press on this & recent press for you...
PLS ASX: Short sellers unwind lithium bets – and one uranium stock
Markets reporter
Aug 26, 2025 – 5.16pm
The rebound in lithium prices and a key equity raising have triggered a burst of short covering in some of the most heavily targeted stocks on the Australian sharemarket.
But as shares of lithium miners from Mineral Resources to Liontown Resources rocketed over the past month, hedge funds have been rapidly unwinding their short positions, which make money when a stock declines.
Lithium and uranium producers make up four of the top five most shorted stocks on the ASX, alongside student language and placement testing business IDP Education, which has been whacked by immigration curbs in Australia, Canada and the UK.
The rising price of lithium in August has triggered a burst of short sellers unwinding their bets. AFR
But it is the lithium producers that have long been targeted by hedge funds after the price of spodumene, the type of lithium that is mined in Australia, crashed more than 90 per cent from a peak above $US8000 a tonne two years ago.
That was until Chinese battery giant CATL suspended operations at a major mine earlier this month, which unleashed a rally in lithium prices and led to a number of fund managers including Argonaut’s David Franklyn and Jun Bei Liu’s Ten Cap to take on the short sellers, betting that the rebound will force hedge funds to cover their positions.
The white metal has rallied 70 per cent from a June low of $US575 a tonne, aided by Beijing’s move to curb overcapacity, providing a much-needed boost to lithium stocks that helped Mineral Resources to double in value from its June lows. PLS rocketed about 90 per cent, IGO 40 per cent, and Liontown Resources roughly 50 per cent.
The spike in stock prices has coincided with a burst of short sellers unwinding their bets that lithium stocks would continue to fall.
Around 13.3 per cent of shares in the Gina Rinehart-backed Liontown were held by short sellers in early August, but that has since dropped to 7.1 per cent, according to the most recently available data.
Similarly, the level of shorting in IGO has nearly halved to 4 per cent in the month to August 20, while the shorting interest in MinRes has dipped from a peak of 15.4 per cent in June to about 12 per cent last week. Shorting levels in PLS, however, have remained largely steady over the past month.
Argonaut’s Franklyn said the recent outflow of short sellers in lithium stocks could reflect the market’s sense that spodumene prices had bottomed out.
This comes as Dale Henderson, chief executive at Australia’s largest pure-play lithium miner PLS said on Monday that he was confident the lithium market would turn in his favour over the long run, after an extended price slide for the battery metal dragged the miner to a near $200 million annual loss.
“Spodumene has gone from a peak of more than $US8000 a tonne to $US600, and has now bounced back to just shy of $US1000, so the market is probably saying the trade is over, let’s close the shorts,” Franklyn said.
Perennial’s Natural Resources Trust portfolio manager Sam Berridge said while the rising price of spodumene had broadly boosted the ASX-listed lithium miners, the key driver of short covering in Liontown was its $316 million equity raise.
He noted that shorting levels in the ASX-listed uranium stock Silex Systems dropped from a peak of 14.6 per cent on August 11 to 8.9 per cent last week after the company’s $130 million equity raise earlier that month.
“Where companies have raised capital, you’ve seen the most dramatic short covering,” Berridge added.
In contrast, hedge funds are sticking with their negative bets on the uranium sector. Short interest in Boss Energy and Paladin – the two most heavily shorted stocks on the ASX – increased by 8 per cent and 2.2 per cent in August, respectively.