CMCSA heads into its July 23 Q2 print with an interesting reversal: shorts that were still building a week ago have stepped back sharply, even as analysts keep trimming their numbers and the stock slides to a new low.
The most notable data shift since last week's note is in short positioning. Short interest dropped roughly 10% over seven days, falling from around 99 million shares to just under 88 million — now 2.4% of the free float. That reversal is meaningful given the prior note documented shorts still accumulating. The borrow market confirms the retreat: cost to borrow is running at just 0.41%, down nearly 40% on the week, and remains at its cheapest level in a month. Availability is extraordinarily loose, with roughly 5,300% of short interest still available to borrow — meaning the lending pool is nowhere near stressed. Options tell a similarly calm story. The put/call ratio is 0.41, essentially flat against its 20-day average of 0.41, and the z-score is negligible at 0.05. Neither shorts nor options traders are pressing a bearish conviction trade here.
The Street, however, is a different picture — and it is still moving in one direction. Scotiabank lowered its target to $32.75 from $36.00 this morning while holding Sector Perform. BNP Paribas cut to $22.00 from $25.00 yesterday, maintaining its Underperform. Those two moves follow Morgan Stanley's trim to $30 last week and Goldman's cut to $26 the week before. Every recent action except Deutsche Bank's late-June upgrade has been a reduction, all with cautious-to-negative ratings intact. The consensus mean target sits at $31.33 against a stock trading at $23.19 — a 35% gap that reflects structural skepticism more than near-term optimism. Bulls argue NBCUniversal content depth and wireless optionality provide a floor; bears point to broadband ARPU erosion, Starlink competition, and linear TV decline as headwinds that won't resolve in a single quarter. The valuation already prices in a great deal of damage — the PE multiple is 6.2x and EV/EBITDA is 5.2x — but the factor scores underscore how little near-term momentum exists: EPS momentum over both 30 and 90 days ranks below the 50th percentile, and the forward earnings growth score sits at just the 2nd percentile. The ORTEX short score has eased to 32.7, its lowest reading of the past two weeks, consistent with the short-position retreat.
On the institutional side, Capital Research added over 74 million shares in the last reported period and Charles Schwab added 85 million — the two largest moves among top holders. BlackRock added a more modest 3 million. These are passive and semi-active flows rather than activist conviction, but the scale of the Capital Research addition is notable for a stock that has dropped roughly 18% year-to-date.
The earnings history adds useful texture ahead of the July 23 date. The April print produced a sharp one-day decline of 6.2% and a five-day move of -7.9%. The two prior reports saw mild one-day gains but then faded into five-day losses of roughly 2% and 5% respectively. The pattern is not one of violent beats — it is one of relief rallies that don't hold. Peer moves on Tuesday reinforce the weak tape: SHEN fell 3.9% on the day and LILA dropped 3.3%, while T and VZ held in with losses under 1.3% — suggesting cable-adjacent names are absorbing more selling pressure than the broader telecom group.
The next focal point is clear: the July 23 Q2 release, where the market will be looking not just at broadband subscriber numbers but at whether management's tone on ARPU and competitive pressures has changed at all since the April call that sent the stock down more than 6%.
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