XPEV heads into its August 24 earnings report with options traders positioned more bullishly than at almost any point in the past year — a striking contrast to a lending market that remains tight.
The options signal is the clearest story into this print. The put/call ratio has fallen to 0.31, nearly 1.6 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.34 and touching the lowest level of the past 52 weeks. That means call volume is running unusually heavy relative to puts — options traders are leaning into upside rather than hedging. This follows a Q2 delivery beat that sent the stock up 8%, though XPEV has since given back most of that gain, trading at $12.00 after a 9% slide over the past month despite a small rebound this week.
The lending market tells a more cautious story about the underlying risk. Borrow availability has tightened sharply — only about 33% of the shares already borrowed remain available for new short positions, down nearly 19% on the week and well below the 100% low reached as recently as August 10. That episode, when availability collapsed to near zero and short interest briefly spiked above 44 million shares, underscores how quickly the borrow pool can drain on this name. Short interest has since pulled back meaningfully — down roughly 24% from its late-July peak of around 53 million shares to 40.6 million — and cost to borrow remains low at under 1%, so there is no acute squeeze pressure at current levels. Still, availability this tight with short interest still elevated is a combination worth watching.
The bull-versus-bear debate turns largely on whether XPeng can demonstrate a credible path to margin improvement. Bulls point to the EPS surprise factor, which ranks at the 98th percentile of the universe — the company has consistently beaten analyst estimates. The last quarterly print in May produced a 5-day stock gain of roughly 2%. The upcoming upgrade from Macquarie to Outperform, issued in late May, reflects confidence in delivery momentum. Bears, including Barclays which trimmed its target to $15 just last month while maintaining an Underweight rating, argue the valuation math is difficult: the stock trades at over 120x trailing earnings with EV/EBITDA at 30x, and both the 30-day EPS momentum score (ranked 7th percentile) and 90-day score (2nd percentile) signal that near-term estimate revisions have been deteriorating. Note that the consensus mean price target of $148 in the data appears inconsistent with the stock's current price and recent analyst actions — this figure is likely stale or reflects a different share class and should be disregarded. The institutional flow offers one positive note: Goldman Sachs added over 3.7 million shares in Q2, and BlackRock added 1.1 million in July, suggesting some large-money comfort with the setup.
Sunday's print is ultimately a test of whether delivery volume gains translate into the margin inflection that would give the bullish options positioning something real to stand on.
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