RELX heads into its July 23 half-year results with bears quietly unwinding — a notable contrast to the defensive tilt visible in options.
The clearest signal in the lending market is a retreat by short sellers. Short interest has fallen nearly 17% over the past month to roughly 2.9 million shares, with the decline accelerating this week — down another 10% over seven days. That move has loosened the borrow pool considerably: availability has roughly doubled in a week to 405%, meaning there are now more than four shares available to borrow for every one currently lent out. Borrowing costs have dropped in tandem, falling 23% over the week to just 0.55% — comfortably in "easy borrow" territory. The ORTEX short score has eased to 35 from above 40 at the start of the month, a further indication that short-side pressure has been fading rather than building.
Options positioning tells a subtler story. Put/call ratios have nudged higher into the print, running at 0.92 against a 20-day average of 0.80 — about 0.7 standard deviations above the recent norm. That is not extreme defensive positioning, but it is a mild tilt toward protection. The stock itself has been calm: up roughly 4% on the week to $33.70, after a small pullback on Thursday. The past two earnings prints produced sharp and opposite moves — a 5.5% single-day drop in May 2026 and a 12% single-day gain in February 2026 — which may explain why options traders are buying some insurance even as short sellers step back.
The analyst picture is mixed, with recent coverage limited to a single relevant data point: Citigroup upgraded RELX to Buy in April, having initiated coverage at Neutral just three months earlier. Most other notable moves on record are too dated to carry weight, and no consensus price target is available for this NYSE-listed ADR. On the institutional side, the ownership base is broad and stable, anchored by BlackRock at nearly 10% of shares. A standout recent addition is Massachusetts Financial Services, which added over 16.5 million shares in the latest reporting period — one of the larger single-holder builds among the top-15 holders. The factor score picture flags the dividend as a relative strength at the 71st percentile, while the short score rank at the 83rd percentile reflects how far positioning has shifted relative to peers.
The July 23 print will test whether RELX's defensive information-services model — legal data, risk analytics, scientific publishing — can sustain the revenue and margin trajectory that justifies a PE near 24x against a backdrop of cautious corporate spending, with prior-quarter earnings surprise ranking only in the 26th percentile a signal that beats have not come easily.
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