WisdomTree, Inc. has seen a week of genuine movement on two fronts simultaneously: short sellers covering at a pace that stands out even against a month already marked by declining positions, while the Street's most active bull on the name just raised his target to a new high.
The short interest story has changed materially since last week's note. Short interest has dropped 13.8% over the past week alone, landing at 10.0% of free float — down from 11.8% when this column last filed. That single-day drop on August 25 of 15.6% was particularly sharp, pulling shares short from roughly 16.2 million to 13.7 million. Over the past month, the retreat totals 21.6%, confirming that the trend documented last week has accelerated rather than stalled. Notably, the ORTEX short score has also eased, falling to 63.7 from the 66–67 range it occupied through most of August. Still, at 10% of free float, this is not a clean slate — short interest remains elevated by any normal measure, and the borrow market continues to pose no obstacle to rebuilding positions. Availability runs near 194%, borrowing costs have slipped to 0.46%, and the 52-week tightest availability reading was 59% — meaning the current setup is far looser than the year's most stressed point.
Options traders are not signalling alarm in either direction. The put/call ratio is running at 0.019, essentially flat with its 20-day average of 0.020, and the z-score of -0.14 confirms the reading as unremarkable. What is notable is how close the PCR sits to its 52-week low of 0.014 — there is almost no put demand relative to calls, which aligns with the stock's 24% gain over the past month and 5.6% gain this week alone. At $24.13, the stock has moved well through most analyst price targets issued earlier this year.
The analyst picture has shifted in a meaningful way. Oppenheimer's Chris Kotowski raised his target to $27 today — the first time a published target on WT has cleared $26. That follows Northland Capital Markets lifting to $26 last week. Both maintain Outperform ratings. Goldman Sachs, by contrast, kept its Neutral and raised its target to just $18.30 earlier this month, now sitting 26% below the current price — a gap that reflects a genuine valuation debate rather than a consensus. The stock's P/E has expanded to 18.2x, up nearly 1.8 points over the past 30 days, and price-to-book has risen to 4.1x. Factor scores add further colour: dividend rank sits in the 89th percentile, forward EPS growth momentum in the 78th percentile, and EPS surprise in the 71st — but the short score ranks in only the 6th percentile, meaning the market still assigns meaningful probability to a continued short thesis despite recent covering.
Among the closest correlated peers, IBKR posted the sharpest weekly move, up 8.4%, while SII on the TSX gained 16.4% — both outpacing WT's 5.6% on the week. IVZ and OWL were more muted, each up roughly 1%. The divergence within the peer group suggests this is a stock-specific week rather than a pure sector move.
The earnings record is worth holding in view. The most recent print — July 31 — produced an 11.6% one-day move and a 13% five-day gain, consistent across multiple reporting of that same event. With no next earnings date currently set, the key variable in the near term is whether short covering continues at last week's pace, or whether the remaining 10% short interest finds a reason to entrench at current levels given the stock's rapid approach toward and through analysts' consensus targets.
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