Short sellers are retreating from BKNG at pace. Short interest fell 12.2% in one week to 63.8% of free float, the sharpest weekly drop since July's peak. Options traders have shifted in the same direction. The put/call ratio hit 0.86 — its lowest in 20 days and 2.1 standard deviations below the 20-day mean.
Wall Street has been busy raising targets. Evercore ISI lifted its price target to $270 from $245 on August 24, maintaining Outperform. UBS sits at $274. B. Riley Securities also targets $274. Against a current price of $208.89, the mean analyst target of $237.81 implies roughly 14% upside. BTIG reiterated its Buy with a $250 target as recently as this morning.
The August 4 earnings print catalysed much of this. Argus, Citigroup, Oppenheimer, Benchmark, Wells Fargo, and Piper Sandler all raised targets post-results, when the stock jumped 7.4% in a single session.
SI peaked above 29 million shares in late July before a sustained unwind. It now sits at roughly 20.6 million shares. The monthly decline is 29%. The ORTEX short score has eased alongside — falling from 35.0 on August 18 to 33.8 on August 25 — signalling diminishing bearish conviction.
The borrow market is not flashing stress. Availability sits at 9,999% — effectively uncapped supply of lendable shares relative to shares already borrowed. The cost to borrow jumped 248% over the week to 0.49%, but in absolute terms that remains near historical lows. Shorts covering are not fighting for scarce borrows; they are simply exiting.
One institutional footnote worth tracking: Capital Research and Management added 8.23 million shares as of July 31, the largest incremental move among the top 15 holders. That positions them at roughly 4.2% of shares outstanding. BlackRock and Vanguard hold 8.7% and 7.3% respectively, with minimal changes.
Three data points now point the same way on BKNG:
The stock is up 17.7% over the past month despite a modest 2.3% pullback yesterday. Next earnings are due October 29.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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