MMM approaches its July 17 Q2 print with short sellers visibly pulling back — a notable shift in positioning heading into a report that will test whether the conglomerate's margin recovery story has legs.
The clearest positioning signal is the sharp retreat in short interest. Bears covered aggressively on July 10, with short interest falling 12.7% in a single session to 1.93% of the free float — down more than 10% on the week. The one-month picture is more nuanced: shorts had been building through June, rising roughly 20% over that period before this week's reversal. Borrow conditions reinforce the low-conviction bear thesis. Cost to borrow has crept up slightly to 0.51% but remains trivially cheap, and availability is effectively unconstrained — hundreds of millions of shares sit ready to lend with no meaningful queue. This is not a market where bears are being squeezed out; they are choosing to step aside.
Options sentiment has also shifted toward bulls in recent weeks, though not emphatically. The put/call ratio has drifted lower to 0.80, running slightly below its 20-day average of 0.89 — a modest tilt toward calls rather than hedges. That reading is well off the elevated defensive posture seen in early June, when the PCR topped 1.4. The stock itself has done little to excite anyone, slipping fractionally over the past month to $157.70 and losing nearly 1% on the week. Analysts are split on what that flatness means: Bernstein initiated coverage in June with an Underperform and a $131 target, sitting nearly 17% below the current price. Wells Fargo countered after the last earnings print with a raised Overweight target of $165. Barclays remains constructive at $185 despite trimming its target from $190 in April. The bears point to a 2.2% Consumer segment revenue miss last quarter, slowing China industrial output, and unresolved PFAS litigation overhang. Bulls cite four consecutive quarters of Consumer segment growth and adjusted operating margins that reached 24.4% — well above prior forecasts — with management guiding for another 100 basis points of segment margin expansion in 2026.
The last two prints produced sharply divergent reactions. April's Q1 release sent the stock down 3.7% on the day and 3.5% over the following five sessions. The May print reversed that entirely, delivering a 2.6% gain on the day and a 4.2% rally over the subsequent week. The Q2 report will therefore serve as a tiebreaker: the question is whether improved operational execution is durable enough to offset macro headwinds in China and housing — or whether the Consumer segment's softness was a warning shot rather than a blip.
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