Shopify has recovered from its June 16 earnings drop and now trades at $113.23 — up 2.5% on the week — yet the CEO who knew the numbers before anyone else has not stopped selling.
The insider story is the dominant thread this week, and it has evolved since the pre-earnings notes. Tobias Lütke sold 45,000 shares on June 11 at roughly $110.45, collecting around $5.0 million, with a further 9,000-share tranche the same day adding nearly $1.0 million. A 3,000-share sale on June 10 preceded those. In total, Lütke has pulled north of $6.9 million in disclosed open-market proceeds across this short window alone — continuing the unbroken pattern of selling into every price recovery documented in the prior two notes. The 90-day net insider figure of roughly 196,000 shares looks nominally positive, but it is entirely explained by routine non-cash director award grants. Every open-market transaction across the window remains a sale.
The lending market reinforces how little concern the short community has built up here. Short interest has fallen a further 23.5% over the past week to just 1.5% of the free float — a level that is objectively low and still falling. Availability is essentially uncapped: roughly 950 million shares remain lendable against a short interest of under 19 million, and borrow costs have dropped to 0.32%, their lowest reading of the past six weeks. The options market is equally relaxed. The put/call ratio at 0.52 is fractionally below its 20-day average and near the lower end of the 52-week range, with a z-score of -0.44 that signals no meaningful defensive positioning. The short score has eased to 29.2 from 30.8 a week ago, consistent with the direction of travel. Taken together, the lending and options picture is the opposite of charged — there is no squeeze pressure, no hedging surge, nothing that suggests professional traders are particularly worried about the near-term setup.
The Street is more divided. Most analyst actions cluster around late April and early May, when the print before this one triggered a wave of target cuts. Bulls — led by Needham with a $180 target and RBC holding at $170 — point to broad-based merchant momentum and a forward EPS estimate that has climbed sharply year-on-year. Bears, including UBS at $130 and Barclays at $126, flag slowing growth rates, narrowing operating margins, and a valuation that leaves no room for error: the PE has risen to nearly 55x and the EV/EBITDA sits at 45x, both expanding on the month. The mean price target of around $150 implies roughly 32% upside from current levels — but the gap between the most optimistic and most cautious targets is wide enough that the Street is not speaking with one voice. Factor scoring adds a nuance: EPS momentum over 30 and 90 days ranks in the 60th-68th percentile — solid but not exceptional — while the EPS surprise rank at just the 7th percentile suggests the company has recently been delivering below consensus expectations, which context makes the May earnings day-one move of -17% more legible.
That May print is worth naming directly. When Shopify last reported, on May 5, the stock fell 17.3% on the day and extended to -21.7% by the end of the week. The magnitude of that reaction was larger than the earnings move anticipated by the then-prevailing options pricing, and short interest was running at a similar low level at the time — meaning the sell-off was driven by fundamental disappointment, not a crowded-short unwind. The next earnings event is scheduled for August 5. Between now and then, the stock is climbing back from a level that is still well below where Lütke has been consistently cashing out.
Capital Research and Management remains the largest external holder with a 7.5% stake that grew by 7.6 million shares in the most recent reporting period — a meaningful vote of confidence from a long-only manager at scale. Lütke himself holds 6.1% but trimmed by 201,000 shares in the last reported period. The contrast between institutional accumulation and founder distribution is worth watching as the August print approaches and the stock continues to recover toward the zone where the CEO has been most active.
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