TPG enters the back half of August with a striking divergence: short sellers are abandoning positions at pace, the stock has rallied 23% over the past month, and options traders just made one of the most decisive pivots toward calls seen all year.
The most striking feature in the positioning data is how aggressively shorts have stepped back. Short interest has fallen 27% over the past month, dropping from roughly 12.3 million shares to just over 9.3 million — leaving shorts at 6.3% of the free float, down from levels closer to 8.5% in late July. The move lower accelerated this week, with a 9% week-on-week decline. Borrow conditions reflect the retreating demand: cost to borrow has halved over the past month to just 0.29%, and availability is now extremely loose at over 2,300% — meaning for every share currently borrowed, there are roughly 23 more waiting in the lending pool. The short score, ORTEX's composite measure of short-side pressure, has pulled back sharply from 55.7 on August 14 to 44.2 today, its lowest reading in the recent data window. Positioning looks decisively less bearish than it did two weeks ago.
Options traders have made an equally dramatic move. For most of July and into mid-August, the put/call ratio hovered in the 3.6-3.9 range — heavily skewed toward downside protection. That ratio has collapsed to 0.97 this week, well below the 20-day mean of 2.07 and running about one standard deviation beneath it. That is close to the 52-week low of 0.32. The shift is sharp enough to represent a genuine change in tone, not noise: the market went from defensive to neutral-to-bullish in the space of a fortnight. The catalyst appears to be the August 6 earnings print, which delivered a 2.3% gain on the day and a 15% five-day follow-through — the strongest post-results reaction in recent history.
The Street endorsed that move almost unanimously. Following the August earnings release, UBS raised its target to $65, RBC Capital lifted to $65, and Barclays moved to $64 — all three maintaining positive ratings. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods added their own bump, taking the target to $57. The consensus mean now sits at roughly $60.44, implying about 14% upside from the current $52.88. The dissenter remains Evercore ISI, which kept its In-Line rating with a $50 target — below the current price. Morgan Stanley had cut its target to $54 in late July, but that action predates the earnings beat and may not fully reflect the updated picture. On valuation, the price-to-book ratio has expanded by 4.6 points over the past 30 days to 10.9x, and the P/E has moved up by 2.3 turns. The analyst recommendation divergence factor ranks in the 94th percentile, signalling an unusually wide gap between the most bullish and most cautious voices on the Street — a setup that historically reflects either a stock in transition or one where the narrative is still being written.
Institutional ownership offers a few notable data points. Wellington Management added over 3 million shares in the most recent reporting period, making it the largest institutional holder at 6.6% of shares. Balyasny built a new or significantly expanded position of 2.7 million shares. Millennium added 2.2 million. The direction of institutional flow is broadly supportive. On the insider side, founder and Executive Chairman James Coulter sold roughly 41,000 shares at $43.15 in mid-July — well below the current price — a relatively modest disposal that carries little informational weight given the subsequent rally.
Peer context adds texture. ARES and OWL each gained roughly 1.7% on the week. BX added 2.0% and HLNE outperformed with a 5.7% weekly move. CG lagged the group, up just 1.1%. TPG's 1.7% weekly gain puts it broadly in line with the alt-asset management peer set — the month-to-date surge of 23% is what separates it from the crowd.
The next scheduled earnings event is November 4. Between now and then, the key variables to watch are whether short interest continues to compress toward the lower end of its recent range, whether the put/call ratio sustains its new, calmer footing, and whether the Street's bullish target upgrades pull further consensus estimate revisions in their wake.
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