Murphy USA heads into its July 29 earnings with a fresh Street upgrade, a short position that spent the week unwinding, and options traders positioned more bullishly than they have been in months.
The most notable development this week was on the analyst tape. Jefferies upgraded MUSA to Buy from Hold on July 1, lifting its target to $625 from $550 — the most decisive directional change from any firm in recent months. That move sits on top of a broader re-rating that has been underway since late April. Keybanc lifted its target to $680 in mid-June, and Bank of America upgraded from Underperform to Neutral back in April after a strong earnings print. The consensus has moved from cautious to constructive, with five buys and four holds now on the tape and a mean target of $588.70 — roughly 9% above Tuesday's close of $538.87. Wells Fargo remains the outlier, holding at Equal-Weight with a $520 target, and RBC sits at Sector Perform with $517. But the direction of travel is clear: the Street spent the first half of 2026 catching up to a stock that has already moved hard off its lows.
That April earnings print remains the backstory for much of the current positioning. Murphy USA surged roughly 13-16% in the session after its Q1 release — an extraordinary single-day move for a fuel retail name. The bull case centres on a combination of nicotine segment strength, disciplined new store openings, and a low-cost fuel supply model that consistently beats on margins. The bear case is structural: heavy dependence on petroleum volumes, rising competition in the nicotine pouch category from new entrants, and a capital allocation mix that critics argue leans too heavily on buybacks over network growth. At a PE of roughly 17x and EV/EBITDA near 10.9x — both drifting slightly lower over the past week — valuation looks undemanding relative to that earnings track record, and the eps surprise factor score at the 79th percentile reflects a company that routinely beats consensus.
Short positioning tells a relatively muted story, though it has been building through June in a way worth noting. Short interest climbed about 14% over the past month to reach 5.5% of the free float, peaking mid-June before pulling back sharply — down more than 11% on the week. The borrow market is exceptionally loose, with availability running near 2,590% of short interest, meaning lenders are sitting on nearly 26 times the shares currently borrowed. Cost to borrow has ticked up from mid-single-digit basis points to just over 50 basis points, but that remains firmly in "easy borrow" territory. The short score of 41.5 places MUSA in roughly the 40th percentile on squeeze risk — not a crowded or pressured short. The more likely read on the mid-June SI spike is tactical positioning ahead of earnings, which has since been trimmed.
Options market sentiment reinforces the constructive tone. The put/call ratio ended the week at 0.43, below its 20-day average of 0.50 and running near the low end of its 52-week range — the floor for the past year was 0.36. That reflects call-heavy activity rather than hedging demand, consistent with the bullish tilt on the analyst tape. The z-score of -0.73 is not an extreme reading, but the direction has been consistent: the PCR was running above 0.55 through most of May and early June before collapsing to current levels in the back half of June, almost precisely aligned with the Jefferies upgrade timeline and the short interest unwind.
Insider activity offers a modest counterweight. Every reported trade over the past 90 days has been a sale — two board members and three SVPs all reduced positions between May and early June at prices ranging from $511 to $592. The net sale value over 90 days is roughly $30 million. None of the transactions carry high significance scores, and programmatic selling after a strong rally is common at these levels, but the absence of any buying from insiders while the stock trades near $540 is a detail worth holding alongside the bullish analyst narrative.
With Q2 results due July 29, the next question is whether Murphy USA can reproduce the kind of earnings surprise that drove the spring rally — and whether fuel margin trends and nicotine comps held up through a quarter that brought volatile crude prices and a competitive convenience landscape.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open MUSA on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
