Paramount Skydance Corporation reports again on August 3 — its second earnings event in roughly two weeks — with the stock down nearly 20% over the past month and short sellers continuing to press their advantage.
The short position has grown steadily since the July 21 print failed to provide relief. Roughly 82.8 million shares are now borrowed, up about 10.7% over the past month, with the pace of accumulation picking up through late July. The ORTEX short score reads 72.0, little changed from the 73.1 recorded just after the last print — a persistently bearish signal rather than a fresh escalation. Cost to borrow has actually eased sharply from the post-July-21 spike, falling nearly 50% on the week to 1.58%, which is consistent with the pattern noted after the mid-June flare: borrowing costs spike briefly, then fade. Availability has loosened to 122%, meaning there is now roughly 1.2 shares available to lend for every share already borrowed — comfortably above the 52-week trough of 37%. The lending market is not under stress, and there is no squeeze catalyst visible in the borrow data.
Options positioning has actually turned less defensive than usual ahead of this print. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.97, about 1.6 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 1.01. That is a notably call-skewed reading relative to recent history, even as the stock continues to slide. Whether that reflects speculative positioning for a bounce or simply low put demand on a stock that has already fallen sharply is the tension the data cannot resolve.
The analyst debate is unresolved and the most recent moves — all from the May 5 post-earnings flurry — are now nearly three months old. Wells Fargo trimmed its target to $7, effectively at the current price of $7.96, while Guggenheim also cut to $12 from $14. The most notable prior action was Morgan Stanley's upgrade to Overweight with a $14 target in late April. The consensus mean sits at $11.77, implying the stock trades at a steep discount to where most analysts think it should be. Bears point to the $2.4 billion revenue decline since 2021 and structural pressure on linear broadcasting. Bulls focus on sports retransmission strength, DTC optionality under new leadership, and a valuation that — at 0.76x book and roughly 10x earnings — already prices in a bleak outcome.
Ownership is heavily concentrated: David Ellison holds 30% of shares, and the Sumner Redstone trust added 63.5 million shares in one filing. That concentration limits the float and may explain why short interest has risen steadily without meaningfully tightening the borrow market. Past earnings reactions have been consistently negative on a five-day basis — the May 11 print saw a 3.6% drop on day one and an 11.5% decline over the following week. August 3's print will test whether the 20% month-long decline has already absorbed enough bad news, or whether the revenue trajectory demands further re-rating.
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