Campbell's heads into its September 2 earnings print with short sellers aggressively rebuilding positions and the Street broadly unmoved on the bull case.
The defining move this week is a sharp jump in short interest. Bears added roughly 7.8 million shares in a single step around August 11, lifting SI from ~41 million to nearly 49 million — a 19% rise week-on-week to 16.4% of free float. That is a meaningful acceleration. A month ago the figure was closer to 14.6%, and the trend has been steadily higher since mid-July when shorts briefly pulled back from above 44 million shares. With days-to-cover running at 8.4 per the latest FINRA data, unwinding this position is not a quick exercise.
The lending market is tight but not extreme. Availability has loosened slightly to roughly 74% — meaning there are about three shares available to borrow for every four already out on loan — up from a tighter 44% range in mid-July when short interest was actually lower. Cost to borrow has retreated from a mid-week high near 3.2% back to around 2.0%, still above where it spent most of July. The combination of rising SI and easing availability suggests new shorts found room to enter without triggering a borrow squeeze. Options traders are incrementally more cautious than usual: the put/call ratio ticked to 0.70, about 1.4 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.69, though well below its 52-week high of 1.37. Defensive positioning is present, but it is not yet stretched.
The Street offers little comfort to bulls. Two analysts raised their price targets this week — JP Morgan and TD Cowen both moved from $20 to $22 — but both kept neutral-to-hold ratings, suggesting the upgrades reflect the stock's recent drift higher rather than any change in fundamental conviction. The mean target across the analyst community sits at $21.82, fractionally below the current price of $22.86, implying the consensus sees no upside from here. That negative implied return is meaningful context: after June earnings the stock managed a 2.1% day-one gain and 2.9% over five days, yet the target cuts that followed from BofA, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, RBC, and Bernstein left the Street more cautious than before. The EV/EBITDA of 8.9x is modest, and the PE of 11.4x is undemanding, but the ORTEX short score of 74.9 ranks in the 2nd percentile for short pressure — one of the most heavily shorted names in the universe on this measure. EPS momentum scores of 19 and 18 over 30- and 90-day windows reflect a deteriorating earnings revision trend.
Ownership adds an interesting layer. BlackRock added 12.1 million shares in a single reported period to reach 9.8% of shares outstanding, making it the largest institutional holder. Vanguard entities added a combined 3.5 million shares. That passive and quasi-passive accumulation is running in the opposite direction from the shorts — and from the founding Dorrance family, whose holdings across multiple vehicles represent over 25% of shares and have been static. The only insider transaction of note this year was director Bennett Dorrance's token $2,145 purchase in June, which barely registers against the scale of executive selling seen in late 2025.
The next scheduled catalyst is the September 2 earnings release. The most recent print produced a 2.1% one-day gain — modest, and likely already in the calculus of the 8.4-day short covering requirement. What matters most heading into that date is whether the accelerating short build reflects a fundamental view on volume trends and cost pressures, or simply pre-earnings hedging that could unwind quickly on a neutral-to-positive print.
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