Klarna enters Monday's earnings with options traders making one of the most aggressively bullish calls the stock has seen since its IPO — a positioning shift that has accelerated even since the article published three days ago.
The options signal has grown louder. The put/call ratio has now fallen to 0.53, nearly 2.4 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.62 — more extreme than the 0.57 reading that drew attention earlier this week. Call buyers have been consistently dominant for ten straight sessions, pulling the ratio steadily lower each day. That kind of sustained, directional drift in options flow is harder to dismiss than a single-day spike; it suggests conviction rather than noise.
Short interest has barely moved since Tuesday's note, which is itself a data point. At 8.5% of free float — roughly 32.2 million shares — the headline number is essentially unchanged, trimming less than 1% on the week while staying up about 9% on the month. Availability has loosened modestly to 58%, well off the near-100% tightness seen as recently as mid-July, and the cost to borrow has drifted back toward 0.91% after spiking above 2% in early July. The borrow market is no longer signalling imminent squeeze pressure; shorts are holding their ground but not adding meaningfully into the print.
The analyst community has also been moving in one direction, though not unanimously. Morgan Stanley raised its target to $21 from $18 just yesterday — maintaining Equal-Weight but acknowledging improving fundamentals. Goldman Sachs and UBS both lifted targets in early July to $25 and $23 respectively, keeping Buy ratings intact. The bull case rests on Klarna's merchant base growing 34% year-on-year and a US BNPL market projected to grow at 12% annually through 2028. Bears point to declining GMV per merchant as newer PSP partnerships skew toward smaller retailers, and persistent realized losses at 0.45% of GMV. With the stock at $20.79 and a mean analyst target of $24.55, the Street collectively sees upside — but the range of views is wide, and the Equal-Weight camps reflect genuine uncertainty about whether the growth story will translate into the margin profile the valuation implies.
One institutional development worth noting: BlackRock added roughly 2.7 million shares through July, and Pictet Asset Management added 3.5 million through June, while Dragoneer trimmed 2.5 million. Early institutional buyers are rotating in as one early-stage growth fund rotates out — a classic post-IPO ownership transition that often coincides with a stock searching for a new valuation anchor.
Monday's print will test whether Klarna's operating leverage and credit quality are moving fast enough to justify the call buyers' conviction against a short base that has shown no sign of giving up.
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