Marathon Petroleum heads into its July 28 earnings with short sellers quietly rebuilding positions even as analysts raise price targets — a divergence worth watching in a stock that has gone essentially nowhere for a month.
The positioning story is more interesting beneath the surface. Short interest has climbed 43% over the past month to 2.7% of the free float — still low in absolute terms, but the direction of travel is notable. The rebuild has been consistent, adding roughly 500,000 shares across June alone. The borrow market offers no friction here: availability is vast, with more than 27 shares available to borrow for every one already shorted, and cost to borrow has fallen sharply to just 0.28% — the lowest level in at least six weeks. That combination means the short rebuild is a deliberate directional bet, not a squeeze-driven unwind or technical artifact. Options, meanwhile, lean the other way. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.66, nearly 1.7 standard deviations below its 20-day average, pointing to call-side demand that is meaningfully above the recent norm. Bulls and bears are essentially pulling in opposite directions in the derivatives and lending markets simultaneously.
The Street is broadly on the bull side, though price target discipline is tightening. Morgan Stanley raised its target to $265 in mid-June, still below the current price of $248.52 but up from $233. Across the recent wave of post-earnings revisions in early May, Goldman Sachs ($291), TD Cowen ($320), Wells Fargo ($335), and Barclays ($270) all lifted targets while maintaining positive ratings. The consensus mean target sits near $272 — roughly 9% above current levels. That said, Mizuho and Citigroup both hold Neutral ratings despite raising their numbers, and the forward earnings picture has softened. The 12-month forward earnings multiple has compressed about 1 full turn over the past month, and the price-to-book ratio has fallen around 0.4x over the same period, consistent with the market pricing in tighter refining margins. Factor scores are mixed: EPS surprise ranks in the top 10% of the universe, and dividend quality scores near the top at 94, but the 12-month forward EPS growth rank is a weak 34, reflecting the year-on-year earnings headwind that dominates the bear case.
Institutionally, the ownership picture is stable. BlackRock added nearly 2 million shares through May, bringing its stake to 8.4% of shares outstanding. FMR added 1.5 million shares in the same period. Neither move looks like a tactical trade — both are consistent with index-driven flows. Insider activity is one-directional: the most recent disclosed trades show an EVP selling just over $1.7 million worth of stock in early June at prices around $268, above today's close. The CCO also sold in May. Neither sale is large enough relative to total shares outstanding to signal distress, but the absence of any buying in the past 90 days is a data point.
The earnings reaction history is thin but lopsided. The Q1 2026 print in early May produced a 2.7% drop on the day. The prior quarter's result in late April generated a 6.8% rally. Two prints, two very different outcomes — making the July 28 release a genuine coin flip on direction, with the refining margin environment in the weeks ahead the key swing factor. The entire peer group faced similar pressure this week: PSX fell 1.7%, VLO dropped 1.4%, and DINO lost 2.4%, suggesting the weakness is sector-wide rather than MPC-specific. The exception was PBF, which gained 2.6% on the week — a divergence that may reflect individual refinery dynamics or short covering rather than a fundamental break from the group.
The next six weeks set up as a tug-of-war between a Street that has been consistently raising targets and a short book that has been just as consistently growing — with crack spread data and crude differentials in the run-up to July 28 the most likely arbiter between the two camps.
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