Rush Street Interactive enters the week after earnings with an unusual divergence at its core: the Street just raised targets in unison, short sellers are quietly stepping back, and yet the stock fell nearly 9% on the week to close at $30.69.
The analyst response to earnings was unanimously constructive. Every firm that updated targets moved them higher — Susquehanna raised to $36 this week, Oppenheimer followed to $36 on Thursday, and Wells Fargo lifted to $35 earlier in the month. Even JPMorgan, which holds a Neutral rating, pushed its target up to $30 from $26. The consensus mean now sits at $34.91, roughly 14% above the current price. No firm downgraded. The direction of travel from the Street is clear: results were good enough to justify higher numbers, even if some analysts remain on the fence about the risk-reward from here.
Short positioning tells a more encouraging structural story, though the week's price action adds nuance. Bears covered aggressively — short interest dropped 14% over the past week from roughly 11.3 million shares to 9.6 million, pulling the SI % of free float down from above 11% to 9.8%. That unwinding suggests at least some shorts came into the earnings print cautiously positioned and have now reduced exposure. The borrow market reflects no stress: cost to borrow is a minimal 0.45%, and availability runs at 447% of short interest — meaning there are roughly four and a half shares available to borrow for every one currently shorted. The ORTEX short score has eased from around 55.5 earlier in the month to 52.8, consistent with the covering trend.
Options positioning shifted sharply around the earnings catalyst. The put/call ratio hit a 52-week high of 2.66 on July 22 — heavy demand for downside protection into the print — then collapsed back to 1.14 on Tuesday as that hedging unwound. The 20-day average PCR is just 0.63, so even at 1.14 the ratio remains moderately elevated. That residual defensiveness, combined with a stock that fell 2.9% on Tuesday alone despite the broadly positive analyst reaction, suggests some investors used the post-earnings bounce to reduce exposure rather than add.
Insider activity adds a note of caution worth registering. CEO and founder Richard Todd Schwartz sold shares across multiple transactions on July 1, totalling roughly $4.9 million at prices around $31.21. CFO Kyle Sauers sold $725,000 of stock on July 6. COO Mattias Stetz and the Chief Legal Officer also sold in late June and early July. All transactions carry low individual significance scores, and planned selling programmes are common at growth companies, but the cluster of C-suite sales near current price levels — across multiple executives in a short window — is worth noting alongside the stock's inability to hold the post-earnings lift.
The bull case rests on the momentum of RSI's operating metrics: 66% GGR growth and 34% MAU expansion in fiscal 2025, a strong Latin American footprint, and $336 million in cash. Bears point to state-level market access restrictions that cap addressable market expansion, rising customer acquisition costs, and the VAT headwind on deposits in key markets. The EV/EBITDA multiple has compressed roughly 0.7x over the past month to 10.4x, while the PE of 42x and price-to-book of 26x reflect a growth premium that needs continued execution to justify. EPS momentum over 90 days ranks in the 93rd percentile — the estimate revision trend has been strongly positive — but forward EPS growth scores in only the 23rd percentile, flagging that the Street's longer-term earnings growth expectations remain measured. Peers diverged sharply on the week: DKNG gained 3.2% while SGHC fell 3.8%, leaving RSI's 8.8% decline looking idiosyncratic rather than sector-driven.
With no next earnings date currently set and the post-earnings short covering largely done, the focus now shifts to whether the stock can close the gap between the $30.69 close and the $34.91 analyst consensus — or whether the pattern of insider selling and elevated put/call ratio signals that the people closest to the business see the current price as fair value rather than a discount.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open RSI on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
