Piedmont Lithium (PLL) with two notable insider buys in the last week with a director buying $292K in stock at $73 and another buying $174K in stock at $69.60. These are the first two open market buys in the name over the last four years. PLL has traded strong in 2021 with shares trading higher by 167% and up over 1,100% in the last twelve months as demand for lithium soars and they signed a partnership with Tesla. The $1.12B company is a pre-production lithium company developing an integrated lithium hydroxide from spodumene project in North Carolina. PLL thinks the Kings Mountain pass is one of the best mines for lithium in the world with ideal infrastructure, low-cost local markets, and short transport distances which affords them some top-tier economics. The company notes that speed-to-market will be key with more manufacturers moving operations to the US, especially the East Coast (BMW, Daimler, GM, and more). PLL has long-term tailwinds from EV adoption which they see jumping to 50% of all car sales by 2030, up from less than 10% currently. This is further supported by key Federal projects and initiatives to jumpstart EV production in the US. They also see supply shortfalls with total demand surging during that period.

Short interest is over 20%. Analysts have an average target for shares of $83.50 with a Street High $95 from Evercore. The firm raised estimates on 6/10 citing an updated scoping study for the Carolina Lithium Project, which the analyst said was highlighted by the doubling of project NPV. While he notes he had anticipated a 20% uptick or more in project scope and value from this update, he sees the study addressing a number of key uncertainties. JP Morgan starting at Overweight in May as they think PLL should be one of if not the lowest cost producer of both spodumene and lithium hydroxide, which is required for long-range electric vehicle batteries.