LION has spent the past week doing exactly what its lingering short base hoped it wouldn't — rallying hard, with shares up 21% on the week and 29% over the past month to close at $16.36.
The most striking development is how quickly short sellers have stepped back. Shares short have fallen 30% over the past month, dropping from roughly 18.7 million at mid-May to around 13.1 million today. The retreat accelerated sharply in early June: the short position collapsed from above 15.5 million shares on June 5 to just over 13 million by June 9 — a move that coincided almost precisely with the stock's surge off its lows. The borrow market tells the same story. Cost to borrow is negligible at 0.46%, down 15% over the past month, and availability has ballooned to over 1,000% of short interest — meaning lenders are sitting on roughly ten times more shares than are currently borrowed. That is a loose, uncrowded setup. The ORTEX short score has also retreated, dropping from 53.8 on June 8 to 46.1 today, crossing below the neutral line and confirming that the short-side conviction that characterised May has largely unwound.
Options positioning reflects the week's momentum shift without overstating the bullish case. The put/call ratio has crept up to 0.26 — modestly above its 20-day average of 0.24 and about 1.3 standard deviations above that mean — which is not a defensive extreme but does suggest that some participants used the rally to buy hedges rather than chase outright. At 0.26, the PCR sits close to its 52-week high of 0.28, so the options market is leaning toward caution at current prices even as the stock makes new highs. That is a nuanced read: call activity still dominates overall, but the incremental flow this week tilted toward protection.
The analyst community has been chasing the price higher with some urgency. Baird raised its target to $20 — from $18 just last month — reiterating Outperform, making it the most bullish published target in the coverage group and now 22% above Monday's close. Benchmark lifted to $17 from $15 last week. The broader pattern since late April is one of unanimous upward target revisions across Barrington Research, Baird, Benchmark, and Morgan Stanley — the only outlier being Citi, which stepped back to Neutral in April while still nudging its target higher to $12.60. The consensus price target of $15.22 is now slightly below the current share price, which means the median Street view has been overtaken by the rally. Baird at $20 and the bulls pointing to $1 billion in trailing library revenues and a 31% sequential backlog increase to $1.6 billion make the growth case. Bears counter that fiscal 2025 OIBDA fell 15%, theatrical releases have been cut back, and STARZ platform revenues outside the core have stagnated since 2018 — a structural drag that a content library valuation doesn't fully address.
One institutional detail worth noting: Jericho Capital entered the filing period as a 6.5% holder after adding 13.2 million shares, and FMR (Fidelity) added 10.2 million shares to become a 5.1% holder. Both positions were reported as of late March and late May respectively, so they predate at least part of the rally. Those are not passive index flows — they are active managers adding meaningful size, and they provide a credible demand backstop that distinguishes this setup from a pure technical short-squeeze.
Earnings land on August 6. The most recent print in May produced an 18.7% one-day gain — the catalyst behind the initial leg of this move. The next test is whether management can sustain that momentum narrative heading into August, or whether the gap between the consensus target and the current price gradually closes from below as the stock consolidates.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open LION on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
