Novo Nordisk heads into its August 5 earnings report with short sellers adding positions at their fastest monthly pace in recent memory, even as the borrow market remains wide open.
Short interest has climbed 30% over the past month, reaching roughly 31 million shares as of July 30. That build accelerated sharply in the week of July 21, when estimated short shares jumped from around 28 million to nearly 31 million in a matter of days. Despite this, the borrow market remains extremely loose — availability runs at 1,364%, meaning there are more than thirteen shares available to lend for every one currently borrowed. Cost to borrow, while it has more than doubled over the past week to 0.47%, remains too low to create meaningful squeeze pressure. The short score of 32.4 sits in the 91st percentile of the broader universe on the ORTEX ranking, reflecting that the borrowed-shares picture is more aggressive than most peers, but the conditions for a forced unwind simply aren't there. Options positioning tells a similar story: the put/call ratio of 0.64 is slightly below its 20-day average of 0.65 and well clear of any defensive extreme, suggesting options traders aren't reaching for downside protection ahead of the print.
The stock itself dropped 8.8% on July 31 alone, landing at $47.08 — a sharp move that sets up a tense backdrop for Wednesday's release. The bears' case rests on persistent Wegovy and Ozempic revenue shortfalls in North America, where prior quarterly results came in well below consensus estimates. Projected North American Wegovy revenue has repeatedly missed the Street's numbers, and pricing pressure from a scaling GLP-1 market continues to weigh on margin expectations. Bulls, by contrast, point to Novo's dominant roughly 20% share of the branded diabetes market globally, the continued cultural and clinical recognition of semaglutide, and an expanding obesity pipeline that includes retatrutide. The company has a strong EPS surprise track record — ranking in the 92nd percentile on that factor — and the stock now trades at just 15.5x earnings, a valuation that looks inexpensive relative to where it was when analyst downgrades began cascading through late 2025 and early 2026. Goldman Sachs downgraded to Neutral in March 2026 with a $41 target, and JP Morgan moved to the sidelines in February — both actions predating the most recent leg down, which suggests the Street's scepticism was early rather than reactive.
Institutional flows offer a modest counterpoint to the bearish positioning. Capital Research added 12.7 million shares in the quarter ending June 30, and Amundi built a position of nearly 8 million shares over the same period — meaningful accumulation even as the price declined. The last two earnings prints produced modest positive reactions, with the May 2026 result delivering a 2.1% one-day gain and a nearly 5% five-day move. The March 2026 print, by contrast, produced a small one-day dip before recovering. Neither reaction was dramatic, which makes the current aggressive short build and the sharp single-day drop a somewhat unusual setup relative to recent history.
Wednesday's print will test whether the North American GLP-1 revenue trajectory is stabilising or still deteriorating — and whether a stock trading near multi-year lows on a compressed multiple can survive another miss without triggering a larger unwind of the accumulated short positions.
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