AMTM shorts rebuild quietly as the Street turns cautious

Options traders tell a different story, one that's more relaxed than the short book suggests. The put/call ratio has been sliding steadily for a month, from 0.47 in mid-May to just 0.33 now — nearly a full standard deviation below its 20-day average. That puts it toward the calmer end of its 52-week range, where 0.20 is the floor and 0.50 is the ceiling. Call activity is running hotter than puts, which is not the footprint of a market bracing for a sharp move lower. The ORTEX short score at 55.4 sits in neutral territory, having nudged lower over the past week from a recent peak of 56. These signals diverge: shorts are rebuilding positions in the lending market, but the options market isn't pricing elevated fear around them.

The Street has turned incrementally more cautious without becoming outright bearish. The most recent action came in late May, when JP Morgan lowered its target from $34 to $31 while keeping a Neutral rating — a trim that acknowledged post-earnings pressure. BNP Paribas initiated coverage the same day at Underperform with a $22 target, essentially flagging the current price as fair value. That sits in contrast to BTIG and Truist, which both maintained Buy ratings, though Truist cut its target sharply from $42 to $35 in mid-May. The mean target across the Street is $33.50, implying roughly 51% upside from $22.16, but the spread between the $22 bear case and $40 bull case tells you there is genuine disagreement about what this company is worth. Valuation multiples are modest — EV/EBITDA is running near 8x, PE near 8.6x — but the bear case rests on structural concerns: below-industry margins, elevated leverage, a PE overhang from the Jacobs spinoff heritage, and real exposure to US government budget risk, including the NASA contract questions flagged in recent months.

On the institutional side, the ownership structure flags something worth watching. Lindsay Goldberg and American Securities together hold just under 37% of shares outstanding, with the latter's position unchanged since at least late 2025. Invesco added roughly 4 million shares as of May, and Dimensional Fund Advisors added nearly 2 million — both meaningful moves in the context of a relatively small float. These are incremental buyers, but the strategic overhang from the two large legacy holders means any move toward monetisation would shift the supply picture materially.

The earnings reaction history provides a reference point rather than a forecast. Both sessions in May following the Q2 release saw the stock fall around 3.3% on day one and roughly 5.5% over the subsequent week. The next print is scheduled for August 11 — far enough away that it isn't driving the current positioning. Between now and then, the cleaner focus is on whether the short rebuild accelerates, whether the NASA contract risk firms up or fades, and whether any of the private equity overhang moves before the summer quiets down.