Ascendis Pharma closed Friday at $260.75, up 13% on the week, marking its strongest seven-day stretch in months — yet the rally is colliding with a notable shift in the short book and a Street that remains divided on whether current prices already price in the pipeline upside.
The sharpest signal this week is in options, and it points firmly toward risk-on. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.32, well below its 20-day average of 0.52 and approaching the 52-week low of 0.22. Traders are loading up on calls relative to puts at a pace that is almost a full standard deviation below normal on the defensive side — the opposite of hedging. That swing is dramatic given where options positioning sat just three weeks ago: in late May and early June, the PCR was running near 0.97, the highest reading of the past year, suggesting heavy downside protection was in place before the rally took hold. The rotation out of puts and into calls closely tracks the price move, and the current reading is near the most bullish options setup of the past 12 months.
Short interest tells a more complicated story. The shares short have roughly doubled since late May, rising from around 940,000 to nearly 2 million, with a 20% spike in the past two days alone. That is a material build in absolute terms, and the direction is clearly rising. Yet the borrow market is not showing any stress. Availability is extraordinarily loose — for every share already borrowed, there are roughly 35 more available in the lending pool. Cost to borrow has actually fallen by nearly half over the past week, now running at just 0.36%. The ORTEX short score of 34.6 sits in a low-to-moderate range, barely moved from recent weeks. The picture that emerges is one of new shorts entering the trade as the stock rallies — leaning against the move — rather than an established crowded short that is at risk of unwinding. Borrow conditions give those shorts no particular urgency to cover.
The Street is broadly constructive, but price targets are scattered well above where the stock trades. Citigroup initiated coverage in mid-May with a Buy and a $355 target. Barclays and Evercore ISI both raised targets above $325 while maintaining positive ratings after the May earnings print. Wells Fargo trimmed modestly to $326 but kept Overweight. The analyst consensus mean sits near $256 — close to the current price of $260 — though the individual targets from those recent initiations and raises cluster in the $325–$355 range, implying the consensus average is being pulled down by older, lower targets. The bull case centres on TransCon technology's platform breadth, Yorvipath's commercialisation trajectory, and the long-dated €5 billion revenue target for 2030. The bear case is blunter: the company is not yet profitable, the Yorvipath addressable market is relatively narrow, and AstraZeneca's Phase III PTH1 agonist data has introduced a direct competitive threat to Ascendis's flagship hypoparathyroidism franchise. Factor scores reflect the tension: the DTC rank of 76 and short score rank of 69 flag some positioning pressure, but EPS momentum and surprise scores are deeply negative, consistent with a pre-profitability name where forward estimates remain in flux.
T. Rowe Price is the dominant institutional holder at nearly 14% of shares, and their last reported move was a meaningful add of 702,000 shares through May. The insider picture is mixed but leans slightly net-buy on a 90-day basis — the CFO picked up 100 shares at $219 in early June, and director Jean-Jacques Bienaime accumulated across multiple small purchases near $222–$239 in late May. Against that, an EVP sold nearly $4.6 million worth in mid-May at around $238, which accounts for the bulk of the net share figure and keeps the picture from reading as unambiguously bullish on the insider side.
The next scheduled catalyst is the Q3 earnings print in early September, leaving the stock roughly 10 weeks to digest the week's rally, absorb the growing short position, and await any competitive clinical updates from AstraZeneca — all with options traders currently positioned for more upside rather than a reversal.
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