Intuitive Machines heads into its August 7 earnings report with its own insiders selling aggressively, short interest near a third of the float, and the stock down 42% in a month.
The insider story is the hardest to ignore. Advent International, a private equity firm holding a 7% stake, sold its entire 11.5 million-share position on July 28 at $12.84 — a $147.6 million exit. Founder and Chairman Kamal Ghaffarian has been selling steadily alongside that move, offloading shares on June 15, June 29, July 13, and again on July 27. A second founder, SVP Timothy Crain, sold $3.3 million worth in June. Net insider selling across the past 90 days totals roughly $174 million. That is not a cluster of routine 10b5-1 plan activity — it is a coordinated unwind at prices well above where the stock trades today.
The borrow market reflects the same tension. Short interest has climbed to 32% of free float — up 11% on the week and now running near a 30-day high of 38.2 million shares. Availability has tightened sharply: only about 24% of already-borrowed shares remain available, down from 46% a week ago and close to the 52-week low of 0.3%. On July 21, availability briefly hit zero. Borrowing costs are unusually relaxed for a stock this heavily shorted — just 0.74% annually — which suggests the lending pool is large enough to absorb current demand, even if it is shrinking fast. The ORTEX short score of 70 ranks this name in the 2nd percentile of its universe for squeeze risk, a reflection of just how lopsided the positioning has become.
Options positioning, by contrast, is notably unbothered. The put/call ratio of 0.36 is actually slightly below its 20-day average of 0.37, a full standard deviation below the norm. Options traders are not hedging. The 52-week PCR range runs from 0.15 to 0.67, so the current reading sits closer to the bullish end. That divergence — heavy short positioning in the stock lending market, calm in the derivatives market — is the week's clearest analytical tension.
The Street remains constructive at the headline level, with a consensus Buy and a mean price target around $39. But most of those target raises came in May, when the stock was trading near $20-25, and none of the recent changes are from bellwether firms. Roth Capital sits at $75, while Cantor Fitzgerald and Canaccord hold targets in the low $40s, and Keybanc is more cautious at $27. All of these targets look increasingly distant from the $12.34 close. The bull case rests on lunar mission momentum, the Lanteris satellite acquisition, and the 1,150% year-on-year improvement in Q4 gross profit. The bear case points to mounting losses — EBITDA was -$19.1 million on $44.8 million in revenue — a limited operating track record, and the stock's persistent underperformance versus peers like RKLB (up 1.6% on the week) and FLY (up 3.3%), both of which held ground while LUNR fell 4.5%.
Earnings history adds one more uncomfortable data point. The last two quarterly prints both delivered negative reactions: a 13% one-day drop in June and a 5% fall in May. The August 7 print is therefore less about whether LUNR can grow and more about whether management can frame a credible path to profitability — and whether the insider selling signals something the market does not yet fully price in.
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