Waste Management heads into its July 28 earnings event with options traders still leaning decisively bullish — a posture that has barely shifted since the Q2 beat four days ago.
The put/call ratio remains near its recent lows at 0.47, almost 2.7 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.56. That places call-heavy positioning close to the 52-week floor of 0.37 — meaning demand for upside exposure continues to dominate the options market despite the stock's modest weekly dip of 0.2% to $238.75. The borrow market reinforces that picture. Availability is extraordinarily loose at 3,466% — roughly 160 million shares remain available to lend — and short interest has drifted lower again, falling another 3.8% on the week to just 1.53% of the free float. Borrowing costs have ticked up 27% week-on-week to 0.44%, but in absolute terms that figure remains negligible. There is no short-side pressure of any consequence here.
The analyst community has moved gradually more constructive in July. Citigroup raised its target to $269 earlier this month while keeping a Buy. Scotiabank lifted to $260 at Sector Perform. CIBC upgraded outright to Outperformer. The mean target of $258 implies roughly 8% upside from current levels — a modest but consistent gap that reflects the stock's defensive premium rather than a deep-value setup. Bulls point to the SRCL integration driving pricing power and a commitment to return roughly 90% of the $3.8 billion FY26 free cash flow target to shareholders — a 162% year-on-year increase in capital return. Bears flag that sub-5% first-half sales growth, recycled commodity headwinds, and a P/E above 27x leave limited margin for error if execution wobbles. The stock has already climbed 9% over the past month, so the bar for a re-rating is higher than it was a quarter ago.
The July 28 print will test whether WM can sustain that re-rating by demonstrating that the Q2 beat was driven by core operating leverage rather than the non-recurring reclassification effects that bear-case analysts have flagged as the primary source of 2026 margin expansion. After the April print the stock gained around 2% on the day but gave back roughly 3% over the following five sessions — a pattern that suggests the market has historically rewarded WM beats modestly before reconsidering the valuation context in the days that follow.
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