NuScale Bears Hold Ground as Options Turn Bullish Into Q2 Print

SMR heads into its August 7 earnings release carrying one of the most heavily shorted profiles in the clean energy space — and a week of sharp price action that has pulled bulls and bears into open conflict.

The short setup is the defining feature here. Nearly 26% of the free float is sold short, a level that has barely moved over the past month despite a 24% weekly rally in the stock to $9.38. That rally has not triggered meaningful short covering — shares short ticked down less than 0.2% on the day and only 1.4% over the month. The borrow market, however, is not flashing squeeze pressure. Availability sits at 81.5%, a comfortable reading that has actually tightened from above 190% in early July, though it remains far from stressed. Cost to borrow is just 0.67%, modest even after rising roughly 20% over the past week. The ORTEX short score of 67.3 ranks in the bottom 4th percentile of all stocks by that measure — a signal that the structural short pressure is elevated but not at an extreme that forces capitulation.

Options traders are leaning the other way. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.47, almost one-and-a-half standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.49, and is near its 52-week low of 0.46. That means call volume is unusually dominant into the print — a markedly different posture from the hedging seen in many other earnings setups. The divergence is notable: a heavily shorted stock seeing call-skewed options flow is a classic setup for volatility in either direction, with covering pressure amplifying any upside surprise.

The analyst community is cautious rather than optimistic. Barclays lowered its target to $11 from $15 last month while holding an Equal-Weight rating, and Truist initiated at Hold with a $10 target in mid-July. Citigroup maintains a Sell with a $7 target. The mean target across the Street is $14.57 — well above the current price — but the recent direction of travel has been consistently downward, with Goldman, UBS, and RBC all cutting targets earlier in 2026. Bulls point to NuScale's proprietary small modular reactor technology, partnerships with the Tennessee Valley Authority and ENTRA1, and materially improving forward EPS estimates — the 90-day EPS momentum factor ranks in the 94th percentile. Bears counter that regulatory hurdles, competition from alternative clean energy sources, and an unrelenting cash burn (price-to-book at just under 2x on deeply negative earnings) leave commercialization timelines uncertain. The one confirmed earnings reaction on record — a 5.7% gain on the day followed by a 13.9% drop over the subsequent five sessions after the May print — underscores how quickly sentiment can reverse.

Institutional buying adds a further wrinkle. BlackRock added more than 9.5 million shares as of June 30, lifting its stake to 6.5% of shares outstanding. Van Eck added 8.5 million shares. That accumulation by large passive and thematic funds sits in direct contrast to Fluor Corporation's disposal of roughly 40 million shares across three transactions in April — a significant strategic exit by a major insider that weighed on the stock for much of the spring. The print will test whether NuScale's improving estimate momentum can answer the structural questions about cash runway and contract velocity that the bears — and Fluor — have already voted on.