Williams Companies enters the final stretch before its July 30 earnings report with options traders still firmly in the bull camp — and short sellers beginning to retreat from positions built over June.
The call-side conviction that defined last week's note has not faded. The put/call ratio is running at 0.47, still well below its 20-day average of 0.73, putting the reading roughly 0.83 standard deviations beneath the mean. That is a less extreme skew than the post-June-22 spike to the 52-week low of 0.28, but the direction of travel is consistent: options market participants are leaning into calls, not hedging with puts. The stock itself has recovered, gaining 1% on the week to close at $75.08 and adding 3.1% in Tuesday's session alone — the options positioning is now moving with the price rather than against it.
Short interest has actually eased since last week's note flagged the buildup. Bears trimmed positions roughly 2% over the past seven days, pulling SI back to 1.89% of the free float. The one-month picture still shows a 17.6% increase from the mid-May base — that accumulation phase has not been unwound — but the momentum has reversed near-term. Borrow conditions give shorts no urgency either way. Cost to borrow dropped 20% on the week to 0.50%, well off the June 30 spike to 0.62%. Availability is extraordinarily loose at nearly 6,000% — roughly 59 shares remain available for every one currently borrowed — so the lending market puts no pressure on either side of the trade.
The Street is constructively positioned with a mean price target of $83.64, implying roughly 11% upside from current levels. Two moves this week are worth noting. Barclays raised its target to $75 from $73 while holding an Equal-Weight rating — a modest lift that still leaves the firm's target at exactly the current price, the least bullish posture among recent coverage. JP Morgan moved in the opposite direction last week, nudging its Overweight target to $89. The broad pattern since May earnings has been consistent target raises across Jefferies, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Citigroup, and TD Cowen — all maintaining positive ratings. The bull case rests on Transco's dominance in long-haul natural gas, LNG export tailwinds, and fee-based revenues that insulate earnings from commodity swings. Bears point to rising leverage from capital projects, interest-rate sensitivity on an infrastructure-heavy balance sheet, and potential environmental permitting risk on new builds. The dividend factor score ranks in the 95th percentile, reflecting Williams' track record of income reliability.
Insider activity has been consistently one-directional. The CFO sold 50,000 shares in early May for roughly $3.8 million, the COO followed with a $918,000 sale in mid-May, and smaller routine sales by the General Counsel have continued through July 1. Net insider selling over 90 days totals approximately $5.4 million in value. None of the trades carry high significance scores, and the General Counsel's monthly cadence looks programmatic, but the absence of any buying from senior management ahead of an earnings catalyst the Street is broadly excited about is a contrast worth keeping in mind. Peers have broadly moved with WMB this week — KMI gained 0.7%, TRGP added 0.9%, and OKE outpaced the group at 2.2% on the week — suggesting the move higher is sector-driven rather than a WMB-specific re-rating.
With Q2 results due July 30, the conversation will increasingly turn to whether guidance can sustain the multiple — EV/EBITDA near 13.9x and a P/E above 29x leave limited room for a miss — and whether the pattern of modest negative one-day reactions at recent prints (down 2.2% after Q1 results in May) reasserts itself or gives way to the more constructive setup that options traders are currently pricing.
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