WBI enters the post-earnings period with a split signal: short sellers have started rebuilding positions following a weak reaction to August results, even as the Street's two bellwether analysts have just lifted their targets to fresh highs.
The earnings print itself landed poorly. WBI fell roughly 4.6% on August 6, extending modest weakness through the following session. The stock now trades at $32.30, down 3.5% on the week and off 4.2% over the past month — giving back a chunk of the 60%-plus year-to-date rally that defined the first half. Short interest has responded accordingly. After collapsing by nearly half over the prior month — from around 10 million shares in early July to below 5 million by late July — shorts have stopped covering. SI climbed 6% in a single session on August 11, pushing back to 11.9% of the free float. That weekly increase of roughly 2% is modest in absolute terms, but it marks a clear directional shift from the aggressive covering that preceded the print. The borrow market tells a calmer story underneath: cost to borrow remains low at 0.81%, down 9% on the week, and availability has actually loosened sharply — now running at 124%, up from a tighter 59% reading just days ago. There is no squeeze pressure here. Shorts rebuilding positions face easy, cheap access to stock.
The options picture has rotated meaningfully over the same window. The put/call ratio at 0.95 now sits well below its 20-day average of 1.15 — a more bullish tilt than the defensive posture that dominated through mid-to-late July, when the PCR reached as high as 1.83. That shift could reflect post-earnings relief from put hedges rolling off, or simply a reset in positioning now that the known risk event has passed. Either way, the options market is not flashing fresh alarm.
The most striking counter-signal this week comes from Morgan Stanley. Robert Kad raised his price target to $43 from $38 on August 12, maintaining Overweight — an upgrade to the conviction level coming the day after the stock fell on results. Goldman Sachs had already moved to $41 from $36 in mid-July. Together, those two moves put the Street's most bullish targets 30–35% above the current price. The mean target across all analysts sits at $34.83, implying about 8% upside from current levels — modest relative to the Morgan Stanley and Goldman marks, which suggests the broader analyst community hasn't fully caught up. The bull case rests on WBI's 10-year contracted revenue base in the Delaware Basin, minimum volume commitments, and fee escalators. Bears point to the risks flagged in the earnings release itself: slowing drilling activity, declining disposal capacity in the Stateline area, and the risk that reduced throughput compresses margins and threatens the dividend. The EV/EBITDA multiple has drifted down to 8.5x over the past 30 days, consistent with the stock giving back ground, while the PE ratio has contracted by nearly 12 points over the same period.
Institutional ownership adds another layer worth watching. T. Rowe Price disclosed a position of 5.4 million shares as of June 30 — a 3.2 million share increase that makes them the third-largest holder behind ALPS Advisors at 17.8% and Horizon Kinetics at 13.2%. Five Point Energy, an early backer, cut its position by 1.4 million shares in the same reporting period, a meaningful reduction from a holder with operational knowledge of the business. Devon Energy's $177 million block sale in June — disclosed as a 10% owner transaction — remains the dominant insider event of the recent period. The January cluster of small purchases by the CEO, CFO, and COO near $20 is now deeply in the money, though too dated to drive current sentiment.
Peers have staged a stronger week than WBI. ACDC gained 24.6% on the week and HP climbed 23.4%, while WTTR added 14.1%. WBI's 3.5% decline in the same window marks a clear underperformance — a notable reversal for a stock that spent most of the year leading the group. Whether that gap closes or widens around the next earnings date — now pencilled in for November 13 — depends on whether drilling activity trends corroborate the bull case or the bear case proves correct on volume pressure.
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