RPC has gained 10.25% this week, a sharp contrast to most of its closest peers, making the stock the clear standout in an otherwise flat-to-lower group.
The peer divergence is striking. TPG slipped 0.7% on the week, CG fell nearly 2%, and SCM dropped a steep 12.1%. HLNE was the one bright spot among correlated names, up 2.3%, but that still left RPC running well ahead of the group. The move carries RPC to $8.82 — up another 2.8% on Tuesday alone — and puts the stock roughly 21% below Barclays' last published price target of $12. That target, however, is now more than two months stale. Barclays maintained its Overweight rating and nudged the target to $12 in May, but no fresh analyst activity has landed since then.
The lending market poses no friction for bears right now, and that context matters. Availability is running at roughly 362% — meaning the pool of shares available to borrow is more than three times the shares already shorted — well above the 52-week floor of 233%. Borrowing costs are low at 0.64%, a level that has barely moved in months. Short interest at around 4.7% of free float is not negligible, but it has trended down over the past month, falling about 5% from late June levels. Nothing in the borrow market explains the week's price move, and there is no squeeze dynamic to invoke.
Options positioning adds a faint note of caution. The put/call ratio is running at 0.048, slightly above its 20-day average and about 1.8 standard deviations elevated — though at these absolute levels, the ratio is still extremely call-heavy. This is a stock where calls dominate so thoroughly that even a mild uptick in put volume registers statistically. The ORTEX short score ticked up to 60.2 from around 56.3 a week ago, a modest acceleration that reflects the recent rise in availability tightness and short interest directionality, though it remains in a middling range.
Institutional ownership tells an interesting side story. RJDT Holdings filed a new position of 10.3 million shares — about 9.4% of the company — as recently as late June. CAZ Investments and Vanguard Capital Management also entered as fresh holders in Q1. BlackRock added around 192,000 shares through the end of June. The accumulation of new institutional money across multiple quarters suggests the story has been attracting attention at lower price levels. The insider picture is dated — the most recent trades on file run through late March, when directors and a 13d group bought steadily in the $7.27-$7.37 range, well below the current price.
Earnings are scheduled for August 5. The prior print in May produced a muted 1-day reaction of –0.5%, but the quarter before that saw the stock jump 6.6% on the day. With the stock now trading higher than at any point covered by either of those reactions, the August release becomes the next hard event to watch — specifically whether the momentum behind this week's move finds fundamental support.
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