GS Breaks to New Highs — but the Bears Who Stayed Haven't Flinched

The positioning picture, however, has not resolved the way a clean new-high should. Short interest now sits at 2.4% of the free float — still modest in absolute terms, but the direction matters. As the previous reports tracked, bears entered in size during the post-June 5 pullback. They haven't exited. What has changed: short interest ticked fractionally lower on Tuesday, down 0.1% on the day, after running at roughly 7.5 million shares for most of the past week. The bears held through the rebound to $1,060, and they're still holding now at $1,090. That's a data point worth watching. The borrow market gives them no reason to leave — availability is effectively uncapped, with roughly 204 million shares available to borrow against a short position of 7.5 million. Cost to borrow fell sharply this week, down 26% to just 0.28%, its lowest level in the 30-day window. Shorting GS remains as frictionless as it gets.

Options positioning has quietly shifted since the elevated put-buying observed earlier in the month. The put/call ratio eased to 0.936, slightly below its 20-day average of 0.948, and the z-score is a negligible -0.36. That's not a market hedging aggressively into a new high — it's a market that has largely stopped paying up for downside protection. The contrast with the more defensive options tone of two weeks ago is real. Bulls in the options market are no longer being drowned out by put buyers.

The Street's stance is one of cautious respect rather than enthusiasm. The consensus mean price target is around $951, which is now roughly 13% below where GS is trading — a gap worth flagging. Most of the recent target increases, including JP Morgan raising its target to $900 on June 12 while staying at Neutral, still sit well below the current price. B of A Securities carries a Buy rating with a $1,050 target; Wells Fargo maintains Overweight with a $1,000 target; both are now underwater versus spot. The targets reflect where analysts thought GS should trade before the stock ran through them. The bear case centres on the reliance on trading revenue and the continuing decline in the consumer credit card portfolio. The bull case — strong M&A volumes, asset and wealth management growth, consistent capital returns — is what has driven the stock 15% higher in a month. A P/E near 17.5x and price-to-book just below 2.85x are elevated by historical standards for Goldman, up roughly 2.1 and 0.36 points respectively over the past 30 days as the price has run.

Inside the stock, the most recent insider trades were CFO Denis Coleman's sales of roughly $6.7 million worth of shares in May at prices between $972 and $975 — well below where the stock closed this week. Those were routine-looking transactions at low significance scores. No buying activity has been recorded in the window, which is consistent with a management team that is not signalling a conviction view either way.

The next event is earnings on July 14. The two prior quarterly prints were muted: Q1 2026 moved just 0.2% the day after results, then drifted 3.7% higher over the following week. Q2 2025 saw a 0.3% one-day decline. Neither set off fireworks, which is itself relevant context when the stock is sitting at a record price going in. What to watch between now and July 14 is whether the short sellers — who have held their positions through a $50 rally from the June trough — finally begin to reduce, or whether the position builds further as the stock flirts with all-time highs.