ACHR Heads Into Earnings With Shorts Holding Firm

Archer Aviation enters its Q2 results — due after the close today — with the stock up 20% on the week, 14% of its float still short, and a gap between bullish price action and a stubborn bearish base that makes this print genuinely worth watching.

The setup in the lending market tells the more nuanced story. Short interest has barely budged despite the rally, ticking up roughly 2.6% over the week to around 103.6 million shares — still 14.1% of free float. That's down meaningfully from the mid-July peak, when shorts held closer to 127 million shares, but the unwind has been gradual, not a panic cover. Borrow costs remain cheap at around 0.61%, up about 11% on the week but still in "easy borrow" territory. Availability has tightened slightly to about 66.7% — narrower than the mid-July reading above 100%, though still well off the 52-week floor near 47%. The picture is one of an elevated short base that has trimmed but not capitulated, even as the stock runs hard into the event.

Options traders are not especially defensive heading into the print. The put/call ratio is running at 0.21, barely above its 20-day average of 0.20 and a full standard deviation below the 52-week high of 0.45. That's a striking contrast to what a 14% short float might imply — call buyers dominate the options market, reflecting the momentum crowd rather than hedgers. The ORTEX short score is holding near 67.6, a level it has barely moved from over the past two weeks, suggesting no meaningful deterioration or improvement in the broader short-squeeze dynamics.

The Street is cautiously positive but not uniformly so. Analyst targets cluster around $10.50 on average — roughly 88% above Friday's close of $5.59 — though most of the bullish conviction comes from Canaccord and Needham, both maintaining Buy ratings. Goldman Sachs sits at Neutral with an $11 target, initiated last December. JPMorgan also holds Neutral. Recent analyst activity has been trim-oriented: Canaccord lowered its target to $12 from $13 in May, following a pattern of incremental downgrades after each earnings cycle. The bull case rests on Archer's eVTOL leadership, its Midnight aircraft programme, and the United Airlines partnership. The bear case centres on persistent regulatory delays, supply chain drag, and the capital burn that defines a pre-revenue aerospace startup. Factor scores offer a bleak cross-check on fundamentals — the short score ranks in the 4th percentile of the universe, and the days-to-cover rank is in the 17th.

Among correlated peers, the eVTOL and advanced air mobility cohort has broadly ripped this week. LUNR gained 33%, AIRO added 26%, and EVEX rose 19% — suggesting a sector-wide risk-on move rather than an Archer-specific catalyst ahead of today's print. That context matters: the stock's 20% weekly gain may owe more to the sector tide than to any ACHR-specific fundamental shift.

Institutional positioning adds one more dimension. BlackRock added nearly 4.8 million shares in the most recent reported period, and State Street added just over 5 million. Stellantis remains the largest single holder at 9.9% of shares — a strategic stake that has been unchanged since early January. ARK holds nearly 5%. The institutional base is not running for the exits, even as shorter-duration traders have pushed the stock sharply higher into the number.

What to watch after the close: whether the 14% short base finally covers into a positive update, or digs in further if Archer's flight certification timeline slips again — because the gap between the $5.59 price and the analyst consensus near $10.50 will either narrow or widen sharply depending on what management says about the path to commercial operations.