Hershey's Analyst Cuts Deepen as Earnings Loom

HSY heads into its July 30 earnings release with the analyst community's target-cutting campaign intensifying and the stock's largest shareholder continuing to reduce its position.

The analyst revision trend has grown more pronounced since the last note. Evercore ISI's David Palmer — who upgraded Hershey to Outperform as recently as late May — cut his target to $225 from $255 on July 23, just days before the print. That follows Barclays moving to $208, Stifel making the most aggressive reduction to $180, and JP Morgan trimming to $191. Every firm to act on HSY in the past six weeks has cut a target; not one has raised. The consensus mean now sits at approximately $208, implying around 19% upside from Friday's $174.30 close — but that gap reflects a stock that has fallen faster than analysts have been willing to follow. Bulls point to Hershey's 35% US confectionery market share, meaningful pricing power, and a forward earnings revision that ORTEX factor scores rank in the 70th percentile. Bears counter that cocoa costs remain a structural headwind, retailer pushback on price increases is real, and volume trends are still fragile — the core tension the July 30 report is expected to resolve or worsen.

The Milton Hershey School Trust's ongoing selling adds a distinct overhang. The Trust — still the dominant holder at roughly 27.5% of shares — sold nearly 10,000 shares across July 20–22 alone, following a pattern of steady divestment. The Trust's latest reported holding fell by 790,000 shares in the most recent filing. CFO Steve Voskuil also sold 1,500 shares on July 20 at $170. Neither transaction is unusual in isolation, but the combination of the largest shareholder trimming alongside C-suite selling ahead of a print that analysts are already pessimistic about reinforces the cautious tone around the name.

Short interest is a less urgent part of the story right now. At 6% of the free float, the bear position is real but has actually eased from a late-June peak above 10 million shares short. Borrow costs are low at 0.55%, and availability is exceptionally loose at more than 600% — roughly six shares available for every one currently shorted. Options positioning is equally unremarkable, with the put/call ratio at 0.79, barely above its 20-day average and well within the year's normal range. The short score of 47.8 is middling. Taken together, the lending and options markets are not signalling elevated stress; the pressure heading into earnings is coming from the fundamental debate rather than from positioning extremes.

The July 30 print is therefore less a test of short-squeeze dynamics and more a referendum on whether Hershey's margin trajectory — under sustained cocoa cost pressure and with analysts already de-risking their models — is finally starting to stabilise.