First BanCorp. heads into July with a notable divergence: short sellers are quietly unwinding while the one analyst who moved this week turned decisively more bullish.
The standout this week is analyst action. Raymond James' Steve Moss raised his price target on FBP to $32 from $27 today — a 19% lift — while maintaining his Strong Buy rating. That move lands 23% above the current price of $26.07 and marks the most aggressive upward revision in the recent coverage history. It follows Moss upgrading the stock from Outperform to Strong Buy back in late April, when he simultaneously lifted the target from $26 to $27. The broader analyst picture has been consistently directional: Truist, Wells Fargo, Piper Sandler, and KBW all raised targets after the last earnings print in late April, though most of those increases were modest and the consensus mean target had been running at $26 — essentially at the money. Raymond James now stands alone as a clear outlier to the upside among active coverage.
Short positioning tells a supportive secondary story. Bears have been cutting exposure steadily — short interest dropped 14% over the past week to roughly 4% of free float, extending a monthly decline of about 12%. The retreat accelerated sharply mid-June, when SI was running near 7.3 million shares; it closed Tuesday at 6.3 million. Borrowing costs have collapsed in parallel, falling 67% over the past month to just 0.51% — a level that signals no stress in the lending market whatsoever. Availability remains exceptionally loose at over 4,300% of short interest, meaning there are roughly 43 shares available to borrow for every one currently lent out. The ORTEX short score has eased from around 42 a week ago to 39, drifting further away from any territory that would flag meaningful bear conviction. Options confirm the lack of defensive pressure: the put/call ratio is running at 0.18, well below its 20-day average of 0.21 and near the lower end of the past year's range.
The bull case rests on Puerto Rico's structural tailwinds. FBP holds roughly a 16% deposit market share on the island and benefits from ongoing federal reconstruction spending and onshoring investment flows. Net interest margin is expanding, credit quality is stable, and the earnings yield — with a P/E near 11.4x — sits at a reasonable entry point for a bank with this return profile. The dividend score ranks in the 84th percentile across the ORTEX universe, and the EPS surprise factor scores in the 79th percentile, reflecting a consistent track record of beating estimates. The bear case is more structural than acute: geographic concentration in a single island economy limits growth optionality, credit reserves remain elevated relative to net charge-offs, and reserve releases are unlikely to provide meaningful earnings tailwind from here.
Peers diverged from FBP last week. Closest correlate BPOP fell 0.5% on the week, broadly in line with FBP's 0.6% slip — no surprise given their shared Puerto Rico exposure. Mainland regional peers moved the other way: HWC gained 3.8%, PEBO rose 3.0%, and VLY added 1.9%, suggesting the regional banking sector broadly caught a bid while the Puerto Rico names lagged.
Q2 earnings are due July 22. After the last four prints, the stock moved between -0.8% and +1.2% on the day — modest reactions that make the setup less about a binary event and more about whether management's commentary on NIM trajectory and credit quality supports the more optimistic framing now embedded in Raymond James' revised $32 target.
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