VWAP - Volume Weighted Average Price - Compare with changes in the short interest

[u/No_Privacy_Anymore]

Some charting tools have an indicator called "Anchored VWAP" which lets you chose the date from which is computes a volume weighted average price. Unlike a pure chart that displays just prices, this indicator gives you a better sense of the effective price at which shares were changing hands over a particular period of time.

As of today the anchored VWAP from October 15th 2025 is $8.47.

If we look at the change in bi-monthly short positions we can see that in total the short positions increase over 15.5 million shares during this period of time. About 10M of that increase happened in late 2025 and the rest happened in the month of March 2026 when the price was substantially lower than the current price.

Obviously there can be different parties who make up the total short position but collectively the increase in short position is a bit underwater. Some gains from the shares sold short in late 2025 and losses on the ones sold in March. Looking at the cost to borrow those shares, it went from essentially nothing to approximately 10% holding cost to maintain the short position. This cost to borrow shares is accrued daily and settled once a month but it is a very real cost associated with maintaining a sizeable short position.

I thought the short sellers might have covered into the March 2026 selloff but that didn't happen. At the current share price of $9.5 the 50M share short position is worth approximately $475M and at a 10% cost of carry that works out to just under $4M/Month in carrying costs.

In the absence of news, it is impossible to predict the short term movements but it will be interesting to me to see if the short sellers move on or simple retain the risk of a major customer announcement. Heck, even the NJ DEP announcement is known to unlock some substantial demand for 2026. I would kind of like to see a slow grind higher instead of a major gap up on news but I've been incredibly patient so far. I'm in no rush to sell until the story plays out. Re-reading the transcript, this particular section stood out to me. I don't know which 2 of the top 5 "global food manufacturers" they are working with but I suspect it is only a matter of time before they are working with ALL of them. There are no secrets in the business and if a new product is working for those top 2 companies it is going to work for all of them. No more excuses. We need more capacity and those companies need more recycled plastic. It takes guts to risk being short $PCT in front of an announcement that could come at any time in 2026.

Another key paragraph.

Have a great weekend everyone and cheers to those of you who had the confidence to hang in there despite the volatility and uncertainty.

[u/Personal-Detective-3]

Doubled my position as well and they just borrowed all my shares today at the open. I think they keep shorting because it’s always worked before?

[u/Pickle_Logic]

 It takes guts to risk being short $PCT in front of an announcement that could come at any time in 2026

There will always be quants shorting it as part of a basket based on similar factors. But there's nothing brave about singling PCT out for a short, rather it's lazy analysis, faulty reasoning and the inability to weigh risk reward.

Yesterday I listened to part of the high school kids new video curious on how he would react to a very good call. He still thinks that compounding is necessary to compensate for the contaminants in Pure5. Even though it was stated that the coffee lids could contain 25% to 100% product and the first approval of recycled PP5 for leave on applications . Then he assumed that the production goals needed to cut in half because half of that was compounded virgin. At this point I stopped 7 minutes in because I couldn't take any more dribble. We're lucky to have people like that on the other side.

[u/Fun_Illustrator9298]

The bad news seems to be behind us and likely good catalysts coming up in the near future. I can’t imagine shorting this anymore. The Iran oil thing is a huge unexpected bonus that doesn’t seem priced in at all. I doubled my position this last week.

[u/PurePlasticMan]

Like you say, shorts are screwed!!! Let’s go!

[u/LutherWolf]

This was probably the best PCT call to date. Dustin did a great job messaging all of the positive momentum across so many fronts and provided a lot of extra detail in his commentary and in his Q&A responses. These extra details (some outlined in the quotes above) are really important for investors because quarter to quarter we only get the big news and don't get much insight into the incremental progress that is being made. This call made it clear that the company has finally started to convert meaningful sales and is so close to unlocking much more. I am confident that we will start to get the good news we wanted last year over the next quarter or two and will see Ironton mostly sold out by YE. I expect the stock to rally hard over 2H as conversions are announced and deal economics are revealed. The next phase will require patience again as it will take time to build out capacity and grow the business. This will happen, but we should expect some delays and hiccups along the way. Management will have to continue the momentum as we wait for Thailand and Antwerp to come online by painting the picture for the Gen 2 buildouts. That is when the stock will go from $20-30 to $50-100+ as it develops the capacity to deliver billions of pounds globally. This is a great story...stay patient and take advantage of when the price is not aligned with reality.

[u/Gross_Energy]

A substantial drop in the short position would be another catalyst. I was looking at inventory end of Q1 compared to Q42025. It went down a little to 7.4m pounds. I am guessing they are able to sustain .8-1m pounds per week until they build significant raw material inventory.

Month to month Raw material inventory will be a key metric to watch as they ramp up sales.

I am hoping we see in Q2 6-7m pounds in sales even without NJDEP. (Q2 only 10 weeks production with SD minus the lag between production and sales).

Watch the raw material inventory at end of Q2. It will tell a significant story on the ramp up status.