CAR enters the final stretch before its October 30 earnings print with short sellers rebuilding positions and options traders running defensively — a combination that frames the stock's recent 5% weekly bounce as contested rather than convincing.
Short interest is the dominant story here, and the direction of travel is unambiguous. Bears have added meaningfully over the past month, pushing short interest to 15.7% of the free float — up 28% versus a month ago and now at levels that rank in the bottom 4th percentile of the broader universe on the ORTEX short score rank. The absolute positioning is elevated: roughly 5.5 million shares short, with FINRA's fortnightly settlement data confirming 5.45 million shares and a days-to-cover of nearly 16. What makes this less explosive than it looks is the lending market. Availability has actually loosened sharply this week — running near 179% right now versus roughly 96-100% at the end of July — meaning there are nearly two shares available to borrow for every one already lent out. The borrow cost is low at 0.70% annualised, a level that gives shorts no urgency to cover and imposes no meaningful carry penalty. The squeeze math simply doesn't add up at current availability levels, despite the high headline short interest.
Options tell a slightly different story. Puts are running well above their recent norms, with the put/call ratio at 1.56 — above the 20-day average of 1.48, though only about one standard deviation rich, so not extreme. What's notable is the trend: the PCR peaked near 1.72 in late July, then compressed through August as the stock found a floor, and has ticked back up this week. Taken together, the positioning picture looks cautious rather than crowded on the borrow side — the short interest is large, but the conditions to force a squeeze aren't present.
The Street is broadly negative, and that view is not softening. Goldman Sachs reiterated a Sell rating on July 24, lifting its target from $85 to $95 — still well below the current $145.13 price, implying roughly 35% downside on their model. JPMorgan carries an Underweight, raising its target to $170 in June, which at least sits above the current price. Morgan Stanley holds an Equal-Weight at $99. The mean analyst target across the panel is $129 — about 11% below where the stock trades today — making CAR one of those rare situations where the stock has rallied past where most of the Street is willing to follow. Valuation multiples add colour to that tension: the trailing PE is running near 27x with an EV/EBITDA around 36.5x, both having expanded roughly 3 points over the past month even as the stock pulled back 9% over the same period — a sign that earnings estimates have slipped faster than the price.
Earnings history is worth flagging directly. The three most recent prints all produced negative one-day reactions: down 8.6%, down 8.6% again, and down 5.4%. The five-day moves were worse — between -6.5% and -16.6% across the same events. The pattern is consistent: results disappoint, and the stock keeps sliding for the rest of the week. That history sits as context for the October 30 date, with no prediction implied — but bears holding 15.7% of the float clearly have the reaction pattern in mind.
On the ownership side, SRS Investment Management dominates the register with a 49% stake, unchanged at the June 30 filing. Pentwater Capital trimmed aggressively, cutting 4.5 million shares to bring its holding to 2.5 million — the largest institutional reduction in the most recent filings. On the inside, EVP Simhambhatla has been a consistent seller, offloading shares across multiple dates in July and August at prices between $138 and $159, well above current levels. Insider net activity over the past 90 days is nominally positive in share terms due to an award grant, but the cash-sale activity runs to roughly $2 million in aggregate outflows — hardly a ringing endorsement from management.
The key variable heading into October 30 is whether Avis can close the gap between its current price and the bearish consensus. Street targets, insider selling at higher prices, a month of rebuilt short interest, and a string of post-earnings drawdowns all point in one direction — but availability is loose, borrow is cheap, and the stock has managed a 5% weekly gain. What to watch is whether short interest continues its upward creep in the coming weeks and whether availability tightens toward the historically extreme levels seen earlier this year — that shift, if it comes, would change the squeeze calculus materially.
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