OXM Bears Hold Ground Despite the Bounce

The lending market does not add pressure for those short positions. Borrow availability is ample — roughly two shares available to lend for every one already borrowed — and the cost to borrow remains near its floor at 0.50%, down slightly on the week even after rising 29% over the prior month. There is no squeeze setup visible in the borrow market. Options traders have tilted more defensive, with the put/call ratio at 4.43 — above its 20-day average of 3.55 — though the z-score of 1.15 is not extreme. The elevated PCR has been persistent since late June, when it jumped from roughly 2.5 to above 4.0 in a single session and has held there. That sustained skew toward puts reflects hedging rather than a fresh directional bet.

The Street is united in its caution, though targets are converging toward the current price rather than moving away from it. After the June earnings report drove a 16.8% single-day decline — and a 17% five-day drawdown — analysts moved from hold to hold but with lower numbers. Telsey Advisory Group cut its target from $51 to $44. Truist trimmed to $40. Citigroup was the exception, nudging its target up from $34 to $36 on June 16, though it kept a Neutral rating. The mean target across the group now sits at $40.00, implying roughly 11% upside from the current close — a modest premium for a stock where the earnings record has been consistently punishing. The last two quarterly reports both produced double-digit one-day losses: -16.8% in June and -5.4% earlier in the same month from a secondary event. The valuation has compressed sharply: price-to-earnings has fallen around 2.4 turns over thirty days to 13.4x, and price-to-book is now barely above 1.0x at 1.04x. Bulls point to gross margin improvements and disciplined pricing under the Tommy Bahama and Lilly Pulitzer brands. Bears flag tariff exposure, elevated costs from new facilities, and an FY26 outlook that disappointed against market expectations.

One signal worth noting is the CEO's behavior into the selloff. Chairman and CEO Tom Chubb bought 2,500 shares at $36.90 on June 12 — a modest $92,250 purchase, but the timing, made in the immediate aftermath of the post-earnings collapse, carries some signal. The net insider activity over ninety days is modestly positive at roughly $525,000, primarily because of that single open-market buy against routine award-related sales.

With no next earnings date yet confirmed, the focus shifts to whether the short book — still nearly 20% of float — begins to lean more decisively in either direction, and whether the put-heavy options positioning normalises or deepens as the stock tests the analyst consensus zone around $40.