MGM Resorts International heads into its July 29 Q1 results with the Street turning notably more constructive — even as the stock has barely moved and short sellers maintain a meaningful position.
The analyst angle is the standout this week. Three separate firms raised their price targets on MGM in the past four days alone. Barclays lifted its target from $39 to $48 on July 9, Wells Fargo upgraded from Underweight to Equal-Weight while lifting its target from $33 to $48.30 on July 7, and Macquarie — already bullish — raised its Outperform target from $46 to $52 the same day. The direction of travel is unambiguous: the Street has been consistently lifting numbers. JP Morgan moved to Overweight back in late May and raised to $53 in June. The mean price target now sits at $48.96, a modest premium to the current price of $46.88 — a gap that flipped from discount to premium only recently, after a cluster of upgrades through May and June. Two firms did downgrade to Hold around that same period (Stifel and CBRE), so the picture is mixed rather than uniformly bullish. But the weight of recent analyst action leans constructive.
The bull case rests on operating momentum. EBITDAR jumped 31% year-on-year in the most recent quarter, net revenues climbed 21%, and digital revenue surged 35%. Group bookings for 2026 are tracking 12% ahead. EPS momentum ranks in the 81st percentile over 30 days and the 74th over 90 days — strong readings that suggest estimate revisions are running in the right direction. The bear case is harder to dismiss entirely: the prior quarter saw a 2% EBITDAR miss driven by weakness in non-luxury Las Vegas Strip properties, with ADR and occupancy both under pressure. Management trimmed EBITDAR estimates for 2025 and 2026 at that point. The tension between recovering top-line trends and lingering operational softness in domestic gaming is the central debate heading into July 29.
Short positioning has been easing, though it remains meaningful. Short interest has fallen roughly 9% over the past month, pulling back from a peak above 26 million shares in mid-June to around 19.9 million, equivalent to 7.3% of the free float. That level is real but not extreme, and the lending market is relaxed — availability is running above 1,100%, meaning there is no shortage of shares to borrow and borrowing costs are low at 0.42%. The options market is similarly unbothered: the put/call ratio of 0.61 runs fractionally below its 20-day average of 0.63, a z-score of -0.28 that points to neither unusual hedging demand nor particular bullishness. Close peer WYNN gained 4% on the week while PENN fell 7.5%, underscoring how dispersed sentiment has become across gaming names. MGM's flat week — down 0.5% — sits squarely in the middle of that range.
The recent earnings record adds a nuance worth noting. The last two quarterly prints produced negative next-day moves, with the most recent showing a 2% decline on the day and a 4% drift lower over the following week. The quarter before that was effectively flat to a slight gain on the day. Three prints is a thin sample, but the pattern suggests the market has been quick to punish when results disappoint and reluctant to chase when they beat. With targets now clustering in the $48–$53 range and the stock at $46.88, there is limited implied upside from the analyst consensus alone — the July 29 print and management commentary on Strip trends and BetMGM profitability become the real arbiter of whether the recent wave of target upgrades holds.
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