HNGE heads into the final week of June with a contradictory setup: short sellers are quietly rebuilding positions into a stock that keeps rising, while options traders have shifted to their most bullish posture in months.
The short interest reversal is the sharpest change since the post-earnings retreat documented a week ago. After falling to 9.7% of the free float following the June 10 print, short interest has climbed back to 10.6% — adding roughly 350,000 borrowed shares over the past week, a 9.6% weekly increase. That reversal erases about half the ground the bears gave up post-earnings. The rebuild is happening into a stock now trading at $70.38, up 3.8% on the week and 27% over the past month, which makes the renewed conviction notable. Borrow availability tells a more relaxed story: at 1,226%, there are still more than twelve lendable shares for every one currently borrowed, well above the 52-week trough of 47%. Cost to borrow has nudged up to 0.53%, a 16% weekly rise but still historically cheap in absolute terms. The ORTEX short score has drifted higher to 46.1 from 42.7 a week ago, tracking the position rebuild — but remains well below levels that would signal a stressed lending market.
Options positioning flatly contradicts the short rebuilding. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.37, more than 2.5 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.49 — the most call-heavy reading since the stock listed. A week ago the ratio was tracking near the mean around 0.48; the sharp move lower this week points to heavy demand for upside exposure rather than downside protection. The two signals — shorts adding while call buyers pile in — describe a market genuinely split on the next leg.
The Street is leaning firmly toward the bulls. Wells Fargo lifted its target to $90 this week while maintaining Overweight, and that action follows a sweep of upgrades since the June 10 earnings print: Keybanc at $90, Truist at $85, Raymond James at $80, and Barclays at $70 all raised targets in the days after results. The lone outlier is Baird, which sits at Neutral with a $65 target — below the current price — arguing that usage-based pricing and heavy sales costs raise questions about long-term profitability. The consensus price target of $81.40 now sits roughly 16% above the current price. EPS momentum factor scores rank in the 92nd and 94th percentiles on 30- and 90-day windows respectively, reflecting a pattern of estimate upgrades that has run almost continuously since the IPO.
Institutional flows add texture. The clearest theme in recent filings is insider and early-backer selling into strength. The President James Pursley sold roughly $2.3m of stock on June 22 alone. Insight Holdings, a 10% owner, sold just over $4.6m worth on June 16. Bessemer Venture Partners sold nearly $6.9m across three consecutive sessions between June 10 and June 12 — essentially from the day of the earnings print. Fuller & Thaler and RTW Investments are on the other side, both initiating positions in the March quarter. The selling is orderly and reflects normal post-IPO lockup dynamics, but the pace is consistent enough to register as a supply overhang.
Next up is the August 5 earnings event — the first full quarterly print as a public company without the IPO noise. After three consecutive positive earnings reactions averaging roughly 8% on the day, the setup heading into that date will bear close watching, particularly whether the short rebuilding continues or reverses as the print approaches.
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