SoFi Technologies enters the week of July 5 with its short thesis intact but two of the more alarming signals from a week ago quietly cooling — a setup that is less charged than the one that defined June, even as the core bear case hasn't moved.
The clearest change from last week is in options. The put/call ratio has dropped back to 0.42, essentially in line with its 20-day average of 0.43, and the z-score has retreated to -0.60 — well inside normal territory. Two weeks ago this column flagged a PCR z-score of nearly 3.0 as the sharpest signal on the board. That spike has now fully unwound. Options traders are no longer pricing elevated downside protection into the July 27 earnings date, at least not yet. The 52-week low on the PCR is 0.41, meaning the ratio is near the most call-heavy end of its annual range — a mild lean toward optimism rather than fear.
Short interest tells a stubbornly different story. Bears have not blinked. SI has edged down only fractionally this week — from 192 million shares to 191 million — and still represents 15.9% of the free float, up roughly 7.6% over the past month. That monthly build is a continuation of the trend flagged in prior notes, and with SOFI up 5.4% on the week, the refusal to cover through a rally is notable. Borrowing conditions remain easy: cost to borrow is running near 0.48%, barely above its recent range, and availability has actually loosened materially over the past week — from the tightest levels of the past month (around 80% in early June) back to 120%, meaning roughly six shares are available for every five already borrowed. There is no squeeze pressure here. The ORTEX short score of 65.8 ranks in the 6th percentile of the universe, flagging this as one of the more heavily shorted names on the platform.
The Street's posture captures the same ambivalence. Bulls — Citigroup maintains a Buy with a $30 target, Needham and Stephens both hold Overweight or Buy ratings with targets in the $25 range — see the lending origination model and bank charter as durable competitive advantages. Bears and neutrals counter that the credit risk embedded in consumer lending isn't fully reflected at current multiples: the stock trades at roughly 24.8x trailing earnings and 1.87x book, both up modestly over the past month as the price has recovered from its April lows. Goldman Sachs and UBS each carry Neutral ratings, while TD Cowen and Truist are at Hold. The mean price target of $20.90 implies about 15% upside from the current $18.24, but the direction of travel on estimates has been uniformly downward since the April 29 earnings print, which saw the stock fall 12% in a single session and extend losses through the following week.
That earnings history is worth holding onto. The April result was the last scheduled print; the next event is July 27. The one data point from June was a minor 1.1% one-day gain followed by a 2.3% five-day decline — a non-event. The April print was a genuine shock: a 12.3% one-day drop and 11.2% five-day loss. With SI still near 16% of float and three weeks to the next release, the setup heading into July 27 — whether options traders reload downside protection or bears begin to trim ahead of the print — is the clearest thing to watch from here.
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