Earnings, Bears, and Analyst Cuts Define a Busy Friday

Markets are on edge as a packed earnings week begins. Short sellers are doubling down. Analysts are cooling on utilities. The options market is pricing in more pain ahead.

Mega-Cap Earnings in the Spotlight

MSFT Microsoft reports fiscal Q4 on Wednesday. It is the week's biggest event for AI sentiment. META and TSLA also face scrutiny this week. Tesla is down 30% year-to-date with an RSI of 28 — deeply oversold. Yet options flow is skewing negative ahead of results. Meta draws the heaviest put volume among large caps. MU Micron, up 223% this year, is a surprise entry in the bearish options camp.

Short Sellers Pile In

Bears are not backing down. CHWY Chewy's short interest hit 72.4% of free float — up 5.8 points in a week. HTZ Hertz sits at 75.0%. The biggest single-week build belongs to CLBK Columbia Financial. Its short interest jumped over 22 points to 27.6% of float in seven days. Meanwhile, LCID Lucid shorts are starting to unwind. Cost to borrow there is a punishing 146.6% APR.

Utilities Face Analyst Pressure

Eight major US utilities received target price cuts today. DUK, SO, XEL, DTE, and FE were all trimmed. No rating changes accompanied the cuts. The sector has rallied hard on AI power demand. Analysts now see limited room to run at current prices.

Europe: Defense and Macro in Focus

European markets saw defense stocks rally after Ukraine ratified a $105 billion EU loan deal. Dulux maker AKZ soared after rejecting a $14.5 billion takeover bid. UK inflation data kept bond yields elevated and weighed on broader sentiment across the region.