SKT reported second-quarter results on August 5 into a market that had spent the prior month building a bearish case — and the first post-print data points suggest some of that positioning is unwinding.
Short interest has pulled back sharply from its recent peak. Shorts had climbed to just above 6.2% of the free float on July 31, the highest reading in the 30-day window. By August 4, that had eased to 5.1% — a drop of roughly one million shares in four sessions. The one-week change is still positive at just over 1%, but the direction has clearly reversed. The borrow market remains entirely loose. Availability has actually expanded over the week, now running at nearly 1,100% of outstanding short interest — meaning there are roughly eleven shares available to borrow for every one already lent out. Cost to borrow holds near 0.43%, well within the range it has occupied all summer. There is no squeeze pressure here, and the modest short score of 46 reflects that: shorts are present but not stressed.
Options positioning had been the more interesting signal heading into the print. The put/call ratio reached 0.16 on August 4, well above its 20-day average of 0.12 and around 1.8 standard deviations elevated — consistent with hedging demand ahead of the release. That is still far from the 52-week high of 1.31, which means the caution was modest rather than panicked. Whether that defensive skew unwinds now depends on how the market digests the numbers.
The Street had been incrementally warming to the stock in the weeks before results. Evercore ISI raised its target from $39 to $40 this morning while keeping an In-Line rating — the second Evercore lift in less than a month. That follows a cluster of target raises in June from Scotiabank, Deutsche Bank, and BMO, most of which had been playing catch-up to a stock that had already moved. The dissenting voice is B of A Securities, which downgraded to Underperform in mid-June and has held that view. The consensus price target now sits essentially at market — $40.73 against a close of $40.72 — which neatly captures the tension: analysts broadly accept where SKT is trading, but see limited room above current levels. The EV/EBITDA of 16.8x has compressed slightly over 30 days, and the earnings yield of around 2.9% leaves valuation looking full rather than stretched.
Institutional ownership is dominated by the index crowd — BlackRock holds 18%, Vanguard entities a combined 15%, State Street another 5.6%. FMR stands out as the most active large holder, having added over 3.2 million shares through May, representing a meaningful conviction build. The insider picture is older: the most recent transactions were a cluster of awards and coordinated sales in March at $35.48, typical annual compensation mechanics, and a director sale in May. Net insider activity over 90 days looks nominally positive on a shares basis only because of the award grants; the open-market selling tells a more neutral story.
The retail REIT complex was broadly weaker on the week. KIM fell 4.7%, SPG dropped 4.6%, and KRG shed 5.4% — all outpacing SKT's 3.3% decline. SKT's relative outperformance within its peer group has been a consistent theme year-to-date. The next earnings event is not scheduled until November 6, so the immediate focus shifts to how management's guidance commentary lands with a Street that has priced in near-zero near-term return at current levels.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open SKT 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.
