PINS heads into its August 3 earnings report with short sellers retreating, analysts nudging targets higher, and options traders turning incrementally more bullish — a setup that contrasts with the heavier bearish positioning the stock carried just a month ago.
The most striking shift in positioning is how far and how fast short sellers have backed away. Short interest fell roughly 16% over the past month, dropping from above 70 million shares in mid-June to around 59 million now, equal to 9.9% of free float. That's still a meaningful position — bears haven't walked away — but the direction of travel is clear. The borrow market reflects the same story. Availability is extremely loose at 1,367%, meaning there are roughly 13 shares available to lend for every one currently borrowed, well above the 52-week trough of 364%. Cost to borrow has edged up slightly on the week to 0.41%, but remains among the lowest levels of the year. Shorts who want out face no friction, and new shorts have no shortage of supply. Options add a nuance to this picture. The put/call ratio has drifted below its 20-day average of 0.95, landing at 0.90, about one standard deviation lower. That puts options positioning in mild call-heavy territory — the least defensive it has looked in weeks, and a meaningful reversal from the 1.08 level reached in late June.
The Street is broadly constructive heading into the print, if not uniformly so. Mizuho raised its target this week to $31, keeping an Outperform rating, making it one of the higher targets in the group. Wells Fargo has also been lifting its target incrementally and holds an Overweight. The bears are represented by Wedbush, which assumed coverage last week at Neutral with a $24 target sitting just above the current $22.83 price, and by JPMorgan, which remains Neutral. The consensus is a hold with a mean target of $27.62, implying about 21% upside from here. The bull case rests on ten consecutive quarters of double-digit user growth, AI-driven Performance+ campaign adoption, and the tvScientific acquisition opening connected-TV inventory. Bears focus on decelerating impression growth, softer ad pricing, and the risk that international revenue momentum fades. Valuation multiples have drifted up on the month — the price-to-book ratio has expanded by about half a turn over 30 days — but the EV/EBITDA of 7x is not stretched. The short score sits at a neutral 51.8, ranking in the 21st percentile of the short-interest universe, consistent with a stock where bears are present but not dominant.
Founder and Chairman Benjamin Silbermann has been a consistent seller, offloading roughly 46,875 shares per week in a pattern that appears systematic rather than opportunistic. His total sales over the visible window run to several million dollars. This looks like a scheduled divestiture program rather than a directional call on the business. Elliott Management, the activist that had been a notable presence on the register, held its 28 million share position flat through the most recent filing period — neither adding nor trimming — which keeps the activist angle in place without fresh news.
The recent earnings history offers some reason for the cautious-but-constructive setup. The last two quarterly prints produced 1-day moves of 2.6% and 10.2% respectively, both to the upside, with the five-day aftermath delivering gains of 9.8% and 2.7%. The stock has not punished bulls on earnings day in recent quarters, though those moves came with beats against lowered bars. Close peers diverged sharply this week: RDDT fell 8.6% on the week while PINS added nearly 1%, suggesting some rotation or differentiated sentiment between the discovery-platform names ahead of the earnings cycle.
The August 3 print is the focal point. The question the data raises is whether the retreating short interest reflects genuine fundamental re-rating or simply short sellers stepping aside ahead of an event they don't want to fight — and whether the options market's mild call tilt has enough conviction behind it to hold if revenue growth guidance disappoints.
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