Glaukos Corporation enters the final stretch of Q2 with a sharp and unusual divergence: short sellers have rebuilt positions aggressively over the past month, yet the options market just flipped to its most bullish posture of the past year.
The short-side move is the week's most striking data point. Short interest has climbed 49% over the past week and 44% over the past month, reaching 7.9% of free float — a meaningful level for a mid-cap medtech name. The acceleration is visible in the history: positions sat near 3.0 million shares through most of June before jumping above 4.3 million in the back half of the month. Yet despite that rebuilding, the borrow market shows no stress. Availability is extremely loose at 1,302% — meaning there are roughly thirteen shares available to borrow for every one currently shorted — and cost to borrow remains very low at 0.46%, up 16% on the week but still well below any level that would constrain new short positioning. This is a story of genuine bearish conviction, not a mechanics-driven squeeze setup.
Options positioning tells the opposite story, and the contrast is worth pausing on. The put/call ratio dropped to 0.91 on Tuesday — the lowest reading in over a year, and nearly three standard deviations below its 20-day average of 7.4. That average itself reflects months of heavy put accumulation (the ratio hit 27.6 as recently as mid-May), making the current collapse in protective positioning all the more striking. Where options traders were previously paying heavily for downside protection, they appear to have abandoned that hedge almost entirely in the final session of the month. Short sellers are leaning one way; options flow is pointing hard the other.
The analyst community has spent the past six weeks lifting targets with notable consistency. Citigroup and Needham both raised price targets in mid-June — Citigroup to $162 from $140, Needham to $150 from $136 — following a wave of post-earnings upgrades at the end of April when JP Morgan moved to $140 and Wells Fargo to $138. The consensus mean target is $157.50 against a current price of $139.76, implying roughly 13% upside. The bull case centres on the iDose TR implant and the recently approved Epioxa therapy for keratoconus, with physicians flagging meaningful commercial upside if reimbursement framework discussions with Medicare Administrative Contractors resolve favourably. Bears point to a still-negative earnings yield and an EV/EBITDA multiple near 473x — a valuation that prices in substantial execution across a competitive market where reimbursement timelines can slip. The stock has gained 35% over the past month, so the Street's targets are only modestly above where the price already sits.
The insider picture is uniformly one of selling. The CEO, President/COO, CFO, and multiple directors have all sold shares over the past 60 days. The largest single transaction was the President/COO selling nearly 19,600 shares at $143.54 on May 1, worth approximately $2.8 million. The most recent cluster came on June 25, when the CEO, COO, and a chief officer all sold on the same day near $142.57. Net insider activity over the past 90 days totals roughly $9.6 million in sales — a consistent directional signal, though sales following a 35% run in a month are not uncommon for executives managing concentrated positions.
The earnings calendar places the next print on July 29. The last two quarterly results produced very different outcomes: the May report triggered a 6% one-day decline before recovering 11% over the following week, while the April event delivered a 20% gap higher with an additional 13% over the subsequent five days. With short interest at a multi-month high, options traders suddenly indifferent to downside protection, and analysts watching for early Epioxa adoption figures, the July 29 release will be the most watched catalyst in several quarters for this name.
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