McKesson posted a strong earnings result on August 5, and the post-print reaction has confirmed what positioning already implied: the bull case is gaining ground, not losing it.
The stock closed at $869.58 on August 7, up 1.6% on the week and nearly 8% over the past month. The one-day move after earnings was a clean 4.9% gain — the kind of print that vindicates a low-short, call-heavy setup heading into results. The prior note flagged exactly that configuration, and the data since has extended the trend rather than reversed it.
The positioning story is one of continued bears in retreat. Short interest eased another 3.9% on the week to 2.69% of the free float — roughly 3.3 million shares — continuing a decline from a June peak above 4.8 million. The borrow market gives those remaining shorts no urgency to cover by force. Cost to borrow ticked up about 10% on the week to 0.50%, but remains trivially cheap in absolute terms. Availability is deeply loose at over 9,200% of current short interest, meaning there are roughly 92 shares available to borrow for every one already lent out. That is not a squeeze setup. Options have normalized slightly after the earnings pop: the put/call ratio is at 0.52, still below its 20-day average of 0.54 and near the lower end of the past year's range — call bias persists, but the extreme skew pre-earnings has faded.
The Street responded to the beat with a round of target raises. Multiple analysts lifted numbers the day results were published: UBS moved to $1,080 from $1,050, TD Cowen to $1,006 from $989, and Evercore ISI made the biggest upward revision, pushing its target to $1,000 from $860. Citigroup had already lifted to $1,000 in late July. The consensus price target now runs at $981.53, implying roughly 13% upside from current levels — a gap the stock has been narrowing all summer. The valuation picture is undemanding for a compounder of this quality: the trailing P/E has edged up to just over 18x on the month's move, while EV/EBITDA has actually drifted slightly lower to 13.6x, suggesting the earnings power is rising faster than the share price. The ORTEX factor scores add nuance: the dividend score ranks in the 94th percentile, EPS surprise ranks at the 75th, and the short score of 33.7 sits firmly in the lower half of the universe — consistent with a stock that has little residual bearish overhang.
The one flag worth noting is on the insider side. CEO Brian Tyler sold approximately 8,460 shares on July 7 at $793.56, worth roughly $6.7 million. That followed similar-sized sales in mid- and early June, and was accompanied by smaller sells from the Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Legal Officer, and HR Director over the same window. The net 90-day insider figure is positive at 35,598 shares — reflecting the mechanics of equity compensation — but the direction of discretionary selling at multiple levels of the C-suite, with the stock now 10% higher than those June prices, is worth monitoring as a pacing signal rather than a directional one.
Close peers moved broadly in line this week. COR gained 2.9% and CAH added 2.8%, keeping the group together after a sector-wide lift. HSIC added 2.8% as well. The next scheduled earnings event is November 4 — the question between now and then is whether the Street's $981 consensus target attracts the stock, or whether insider selling pace picks up as the gap between recent sale prices and the current price widens.
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