Viasat's Post-Print Rally Sharpens the Bull-Bear Divide

VSAT has now reported — the August 4 print sent the stock up 6% on the day and 16% on the week to $86.16 — and the earnings event scheduled for August 7 represents a revised or supplemental release. Heading into that date, the post-print rally has reshuffled the positioning picture in a meaningful way.

The bull signal in options has grown louder. The put/call ratio is running at 0.39, slightly below its 20-day average of 0.43, keeping the tilt firmly toward call exposure. That is consistent with where options traders have been positioned all month, but the stock's sharp move higher gives it more weight now — investors paying up for calls after a 16% weekly gain are expressing genuine conviction, not just pre-earnings speculation. Short interest has eased fractionally, down 0.4% on the week to 9.4% of the free float with roughly 12.7 million shares borrowed, a modest retreat from the 12.9 million peak seen earlier in the week. The borrow market remains entirely unthreatening: availability is at 341%, meaning more than three shares are available for every one already lent out, and the cost to borrow has drifted down to 0.52% — well off even its brief spike to 0.96% in late June.

The analyst community has been steadily upgrading its view, though targets have lagged the stock's move. The consensus sits at Buy, with a mean price target of $94. Needham raised its target to $90 in early June, and B. Riley went further to $106 in late May — both moves came before the recent leg higher, which has pushed the stock within striking distance of those levels. The bull case rests on Inmarsat synergies, spectrum assets, and the revenue ramp from ViaSat-3 satellite launches. Bears counter that satellite services face structural competition, that government spending headwinds are real, and that the CFO's repeated small sales through July — totalling roughly $290,000 across several transactions — adds a note of insider caution even as the stock ripped higher. The PE ratio near 214x and a balance sheet fragility flagged by quality metrics leave limited margin for execution disappointment.