FORM reports Q2 results on July 29 after a stock that has lost nearly a third of its value in a month — making tonight's print the most consequential test the company has faced in recent memory.
Options positioning has turned sharply defensive ahead of the release. The put/call ratio hit 1.13, a full 1.8 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.72 — and the highest reading recorded over the past 52 weeks. That kind of protective hedging demand rarely appears in isolation; it reflects genuine investor anxiety about the outcome rather than routine pre-earnings caution.
The price action underpins that anxiety. FORM closed at $88.23 on July 28, down 10.7% on the day and 22% on the week. The recent note data flags Q2 revenue of $243.5M, beating estimates by 4.5%, with full-year guidance raised — so the selloff appears to be pricing in concern about what comes next rather than a miss. Short interest has risen 34% in the past week to 3.7% of the free float, a level that is growing but not crowded. Borrow conditions tell a similar story: availability remains extraordinarily loose at roughly 6,600% — meaning shares to borrow vastly outnumber those already borrowed — and the cost to borrow is just 0.42%, well below anything that would signal squeeze pressure.
The bull and bear cases are sharply drawn going into tonight. Bulls point to consistent gross margin improvement, the Texas production ramp, and a product line squarely positioned for AI-driven wafer test demand and advanced packaging. Bears counter with tariff headwinds, slowing margin expansion pace, and revenue concentration risk in a single segment susceptible to pricing pressure and demand cyclicality. Analyst consensus has been moving in a constructive direction — B. Riley and Evercore both upgraded the stock in June, and multiple firms raised targets after the last print, with Citi lifting its target to $165 and Craig-Hallum announcing a Buy at $175. Yet the current price of $88 sits well below those targets, implying the Street's post-April optimism has been overtaken by the recent selloff. The consensus stands evenly split between five buys and five holds, with no sells — suggesting the Street has not yet formally capitulated even as the stock has.
FORM's recent earnings history adds texture. The two prints before April 29 both delivered negative day-one reactions — drops of 8.3% and 10.7% — while the April release produced a modest 1.3% gain before a five-day follow-through of 11%. Peers moved in a broadly negative direction on Tuesday, with ONTO off 3.8%, TER down 4.3%, and AMKR falling 6.5%, while CAMT bucked the trend with a 2.5% gain — suggesting idiosyncratic factors rather than a uniform sector move are driving FORM's selloff. The earnings release is therefore less a test of whether FormFactor can beat the quarter and more a test of whether management's guidance and margin outlook can restore confidence in a stock that has already been repriced sharply lower.
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