By Al Root

Hydrogen technology production company Plug Power is set to report first-quarter earnings after the close of trading on Monday. Shares are moving -- a lot -- ahead of the report.

Plug Power stock was up almost 14% in midday trading, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.3% and flat, respectively.

There isn't much news ahead of the earnings report that would explain the jump.

The best explanation might be investor positioning. Plug Power is a popular short, with some 350 million shares borrowed and sold by bearish investors who expect the stock to decline.

That's about 25% of the stock available for trading. That is high short interest. The average short interest for stocks in the Russell 2000 small capitalization index is about 8%.

Short sellers might not want to take the chance that Plug says something that sends shares higher. But buying ahead of the quarterly report seems to have done just that.

Plug isn't profitable yet. For the quarter, Wall Street expects an operating loss of about $110 million from sales of $140 million, according to Bloomberg. A year ago, Plug reported an operating loss of about $180 million from sales of about $134 million.

For 2026, Wall Street projects a roughly $350 million operating loss from about $800 million in sales.

In its fourth-quarter report on March 2, Plug reported a smaller-than-expected loss, and the stock jumped 23%. Management also expressed its expectation to produce positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, by the fourth quarter.

It was the largest positive jump for Plug following earnings over the past 10 years. The worst drop was 40% after the company reported weaker-than-expected third-quarter 2023 earnings.

Through midday trading on Monday, shares, at about $3.50, were up more than 300% over the past 12 months. Shares were still down from a five-year high of more than $46.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 11, 2026 12:54 ET (16:54 GMT)

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