NYT heads into its August earnings window with short sellers rebuilding positions at a one-month high and the Street sending a quietly cautious signal on valuation.
The dominant story this week is the persistent growth in short interest. Shorts now account for 7.7% of the free float — up 20% over the past month, with the bulk of that increase coming in the last two weeks of May and holding firm through June. The move from roughly 10.3 million shares short in late May to 12.4 million today is the clearest expression of bearish conviction in the current setup. Yet the borrow market tells a more measured story: availability is ample at 786%, well within normal territory, and the cost to borrow is a low 0.45% — down slightly on the week. This is not a crowded, expensive short. The shares are easy to borrow and there is plenty of room for positions to grow or unwind without friction.
Options positioning has eased from extreme levels seen earlier this spring. The put/call ratio was running above 8x in mid-May — a remarkable skew — and has now normalised to 1.14, just below its 20-day average of 1.37. That normalisation is notable: the hedging demand that dominated May has faded, even as short interest remains elevated. The ORTEX short score has drifted higher to 56.2, up from 54.1 a week ago, sitting in the lower half of its range but tracking consistently upward. Together, these signals describe a market that is selectively cautious, not in panic.
The Street's positioning is nuanced. B of A Securities this morning cut its price target on NYT from $87 to $80, maintaining a Neutral rating — a meaningful trim that reflects creeping skepticism about near-term valuation. That follows a round of post-Q1 target raises from JPMorgan (to $82, Overweight), Evercore ISI (to $92, Outperform) and Barclays (to $66, Equal-Weight) after the May 6 print, when the stock rose nearly 4% on the day. The consensus mean target now sits at $84.11 against a current price of $72.83 — implying roughly 15% upside — but the distribution is wide. Evercore's bull case is anchored on digital ARPU growth running at 3.6% year-over-year and improving subscriber guidance, while bears point to advertising fragility, rising costs, and the ongoing monetisation challenge in the bundles business. On valuation, NYT trades at 24.2x earnings and 5.0x book — multiples that have drifted lower over the past month, consistent with the mild underperformance of –1.4% on the week versus a modest positive day Tuesday.
Two institutional moves in the ownership data stand out. Berkshire Hathaway reported holding 15.1 million shares as of end-March — roughly 9.4% of shares — with a last-change figure of 10.1 million, suggesting a large new or incremental position was reported in that quarter. The Linonia Partnership LP also shows a full 9.0 million-share position as a new entry in the same period. Both disclosures are now three months stale, so care should be taken reading too much into timing, but the presence of two sizable new-money positions does provide a floor narrative for the bulls. On the insider side, recent activity has been uniformly negative: the CEO sold 9,750 shares in May at $78, the CFO sold around the same time, and the Chairman sold 13,000 shares in March. Net insider activity over 90 days reflects net selling of approximately $2.1 million in value — not alarming in absolute terms given these look largely like planned disposals, but directionally unhelpful for the bull case.
The next Q2 earnings event on August 5 is the obvious inflection point to watch — specifically whether digital subscriber additions and ARPU growth can validate the more optimistic post-Q1 Street targets or confirm the caution embedded in BofA's fresh trim.
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