ABBV is sending a clear message: the sellers are done. Short interest fell 19% in a week to just 1.06% of free float — a multi-month low — while options traders swung sharply toward calls, pushing the put/call ratio to a 20-day low. Meanwhile, analysts keep raising targets. The data points are rare in how cleanly they align.
The short unwind has been decisive. Bearish positions collapsed from roughly 23 million shares two weeks ago to below 18.7 million today. At 1.06% of free float, short interest is negligible by any standard. Shares to borrow remain plentiful — availability is effectively unlimited, with over one billion shares available in the lending pool. There is no squeeze mechanic at work here. This is simply bears walking away.
Options traders moved in the same direction. The put/call ratio hit 0.77 on August 26 — the lowest in 20 days and 1.78 standard deviations below the 20-day mean of 0.82. One session earlier it sat at 0.885 on a brief defensive tilt. The reversal was quick. Call positioning is now dominant, with the ratio sitting near its 52-week low of 0.71.
The analyst backdrop is uniformly bullish. Wolfe Research upgraded to Outperform earlier in August. Piper Sandler raised its target to $303. Wells Fargo moved to $300. The consensus mean sits at $276.59 — roughly 5% above ABBV's Wednesday close of $262.90.
That gap is consistent with the dynamic flagged in the previous stock report: analysts keep lifting targets fast enough that the stock is perpetually chasing consensus. Nine of the ten most recent analyst actions were target raises, not cuts. None were downgrades.
The bull case centres on Skyrizi and Rinvoq sustaining immunology growth. Bears cite pricing pressure and pipeline execution risk. Neither camp has found much traction in the near term — the short score dropped to 30.6 from 32.1 last week, its lowest reading in the recent window.
The next earnings date is October 29. Options positioning and the short unwind suggest little near-term bearish conviction. The question the data raises — but does not answer — is whether ABBV can close the $13 gap to consensus before the Street raises targets again.
Data summary
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