Sivers Semiconductors: Warrants Exercised, Short Positions Flipped, and a Tax Hit Looms Ahead of Q2 Numbers

Sivers gains 39% as warrants add SEK 7.5M, US FCC mulls Chinese optical ban; short sellers exit quickly.

The past fortnight at Sivers Semiconductors has been anything but quiet. While the Swedish chipmaker's share price has been on a tear — climbing roughly 39 percent since mid-July — the moves underneath the surface tell a more layered story of warrant exercises, fleeting short bets, and an accounting charge that could sting the upcoming quarterly report.

Fresh Capital, Minimal Dilution

Bootstrap Europe IV SCSp, the investment vehicle that provided Sivers with debt financing, exercised all of its outstanding warrants on Thursday, subscribing to 1,659,015 new ordinary shares at a strike price of SEK 4.53 apiece. The transaction funnels approximately SEK 7.5 million into the company's coffers and lifts the total share count from 355,081,317 to 356,740,332.

For existing shareholders, the dilution is modest — the new shares represent less than half a percent of the enlarged base. The exercise also extends the company's financing runway without requiring Sivers to tap fresh external debt, a welcome development for a business still scaling its optical components operation.

A Sector Tailwind From Washington

The share price has been buoyed by more than just corporate mechanics. Reuters reported that the US Federal Communications Commission is drafting rules that would block imports of new Chinese optical transceivers for data centers — a regulatory shift that sent the entire optical components complex higher. Sivers, riding that sector wave, closed Friday at €3.83, up 5.2 percent on the day.

That momentum follows a broader recovery from the post-lock-up doldrums. Insider sales after the lock-up period expired in mid-July initially pressured the stock, but the shares have since clawed back 24.8 percent from that trough. Over the past month, the stock is up 8.0 percent, with a 2.1 percent gain on the week.

Still, the stock trades well below its 50-day moving average of €4.95, and at €3.83 it sits roughly 63 percent beneath the 52-week high of €10.23. The annualized 30-day volatility of 170 percent underscores just how febrile trading in the name remains.

Short Sellers Came and Went

The volatility attracted professional short sellers — briefly. D. E. Shaw disclosed a new short position on August 4, and Jane Street followed suit a day later. By August 7, however, Jane Street had already disappeared from the disclosure register, suggesting the position was covered within days. The episode was short-lived but emblematic of the stock's current character: a battleground where sentiment can flip on a single headline.

The relative strength index, at 50.8, points to a neutral technical posture — neither overbought nor oversold — leaving room for moves in either direction as the next catalyst approaches.

The SemiNex Program and a Payroll Tax Problem

Underpinning the recent optimism is a development program announced earlier this month with SemiNex Corporation. The $3.4 million initiative targets next-generation indium phosphide light sources for AI data centers, specifically high-power external laser sources for co-packaged optics and high-channel-count DFB arrays for wavelength-division multiplexed links. Customer samples and initial production runs are slated for the second half of 2027.

But not everything is pointing up. The company has flagged a non-cash social security contribution charge of SEK 42.9 million for the second quarter of 2026, triggered by the share price appreciation, which inflated the tax liability tied to employee stock-based compensation programs. That accounting item will weigh on the reported numbers when Sivers publishes its Q2 interim report before the market opens on August 27 on Nasdaq Stockholm.

What to Watch on August 27

The upcoming report will give investors their first clear look at how the operating business is tracking alongside the financing activity and the SemiNex collaboration. With a market capitalization of €1.09 billion, the central question is how quickly the announced orders translate into revenue — and whether the payroll tax charge proves to be a one-off blemish or a recurring drag.

For a stock that has swung from insider-selling pressure to a 39 percent rally in a matter of weeks, the Q2 print will be the next test of whether the current optimism has a foundation in the fundamentals.