Broadcom has slipped from $399.97 to $389.11 in the two sessions since Monday's report flagged the durability question — and the short sellers who built positions into last week's surge have not covered.
The short interest picture has stabilised rather than retreated. SI ended Tuesday at 69.7 million shares, roughly 1.48% of the free float — still near the 90-day high established on July 10 and well above the 1.10%–1.31% range that held through most of June. The key observation from the July 13 report remains intact: short sellers added aggressively into the 11% weekly surge, and Monday's partial giveback has not prompted them to exit. The borrow market continues to offer no friction to that positioning. Cost to borrow has eased further to 0.32%, down roughly 32% on the week. Share availability is entirely unconstrained — more than 3.2 billion shares remain lendable, a ratio so loose the borrow market is simply not a factor in either direction. Options positioning is similarly unremarkable. The put/call ratio of 1.04 sits slightly below its 20-day average of 1.07, a fraction of a standard deviation lighter on the put side — no meaningful directional read.
The Street remains constructive in tone but frozen in action. The mean price target is $524.51, implying 35% upside from current levels. That gap has now persisted for over six weeks without a material downward revision from any major house. The most recent move came from Erste Group on July 7 — a downgrade to Hold from Buy — still the lone dissenter in a chorus that includes JPMorgan at $580, Jefferies at $550, and BofA at $530, all set on June 4 earnings day. Bulls point to AI ASIC demand and the Apple partnership as durable revenue anchors. Bears focus on customer concentration — roughly 30% of revenue from a handful of accounts — and the risk that Google's TPU build-out gradually displaces Broadcom silicon. Neither camp has moved the needle since the earnings reaction.
Insider selling continues at a steady pace. The Chief Legal Officer, Mark David Brazeal, sold 25,000 shares on July 10 at $401.33 — the third tranche of 25,000 he has sold since late June, collectively worth around $29 million. Chairman Henry Samueli sold roughly 117,000 shares across multiple transactions on June 24, totalling close to $44 million. The 90-day net figure is technically positive at 733,000 shares net bought, but that aggregate masks a pattern of consistent selling by the two most active insiders over the past three weeks. None of these transactions carry high significance scores, and programmatic selling plans are the probable explanation — but the volume is persistent enough to note against a backdrop where the stock has now failed to hold $400 on three separate approaches.
Earnings context adds a final layer. The next print is scheduled for September 3. The last two reported quarters produced first-day moves of -19.5% and -13.0% respectively, with five-day drawdowns extending to -19.5% and -22.7%. Those reactions occurred despite results that were broadly solid — the market punished guidance in both cases. With the stock again trading more than $130 below the consensus target, the September print sets up as a moment where either the Street revises down toward where the stock is trading, or the stock finally moves toward where the Street has been — and the earnings history suggests the former has been more common than the latter.
What to watch: whether short interest continues to hold above 1.48% of float as the stock consolidates below $400, and whether any major firm finally closes the gap between its target and the current price ahead of the September 3 earnings date.
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