DAL heads into its June 18 earnings report as one of the airline sector's strongest performers — up 17% over the past month — but insiders have spent that rally cashing out at a steady pace.
The insider selling picture is the most striking element of the pre-earnings setup. Over the past 90 days, executives have collectively sold a net $18.3 million worth of shares, with the COO unloading roughly $5.8 million in two tranches during April, the CEO selling $7 million in late February, and a divisional president adding another $3.5 million in May. These are not token liquidity sales — the pattern spans multiple C-suite names and accelerated as the stock climbed from the high-$60s toward $83. Net shares sold over the period came to around 255,000. That kind of broad-based selling into strength is worth watching, even if individual trade-significance scores remain moderate.
Analyst sentiment, by contrast, has been consistently positive ahead of the print. The Street has ratcheted targets higher after every catalyst: UBS raised its target to $98 in late May, Bernstein lifted to $88 in mid-May, and Evercore ISI bumped to $85 after the April report. The consensus mean price target sits at roughly $81.81 — just below the current price of $83.06 — which means the stock has caught up to where analysts stood a few weeks ago. That compression leaves less room for valuation-driven re-rating unless the June print forces another round of upgrades. The bull case rests on DAL's pricing power and premium positioning; the bear case is that the stock has already absorbed the good news, and forward estimates may already reflect peak margin assumptions.
The broader positioning data does not add much drama to the setup. Short interest is a modest 3.6% of the free float, down about 8% over the past month as the stock rallied, and the borrow market is exceptionally loose — availability runs above 1,000%, meaning shares remain plentiful and there is no squeeze dynamic in play. Cost to borrow has nudged up roughly 17% on the week but at 0.49% remains trivially low. Options positioning is equally calm: the put/call ratio of 1.15 sits almost exactly in line with its 20-day average, with a z-score near zero — neither defensively positioned nor bullishly stretched. Peers UAL and AAL both rallied more than 9% on the week, broadly confirming sector-wide momentum rather than DAL-specific positioning.
The June 18 print will therefore test whether Delta's revenue and margin guidance for the back half of 2026 can give analysts a reason to push targets materially above $83 — and whether that case is compelling enough to outweigh the message from insiders who have been methodically selling into every leg of this rally.
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