Three distinct signals have aligned on ESI this week. Short sellers are exiting at pace, options traders have swung to extreme bullishness, and the borrow market is sending its own mixed message.
The standout number is the put-call ratio. It hit 0.0685 on August 26 — the lowest in 52 weeks. That is 2.3 standard deviations below the 20-day mean of 0.37. Call buyers are dominating the options market by a wide margin. Next earnings land on October 26, giving that positioning a clear target date.
Short interest has collapsed. Shares short fell 32.5% in a single week to 2.53% of free float — the lowest level in months. The month-on-month decline is steeper still: down 55%. At 2.53% of float, the short position is not large enough to drive a squeeze narrative on its own. But the speed of the exit is notable. Over 3 million shares of short interest have unwound since early August.
Availability is extremely loose at 6,410% — roughly 240 million shares remain available to borrow against the ~6 million currently lent out. There is no supply constraint forcing the cover. Short sellers are choosing to leave.
Cost to borrow rose 92.5% over the past week to 0.44%. That sounds dramatic. In absolute terms it is still very low — 0.44% annualised is not a meaningful friction for borrowers. The rise likely reflects a shift in the composition of remaining shorts rather than any tightening of supply. Availability data confirms the lending pool remains vast.
The analyst picture adds useful context. Mizuho downgraded ESI to Neutral from Outperform on July 15, cutting its target from $54 to $45. That followed a July 28 earnings day where the stock fell 8%. BMO Capital and Truist Securities both maintained positive ratings with raised targets earlier in July. The consensus mean target sits at $46.75 against a current price of $36.02 — implying roughly 30% upside on Wall Street's base case. The ORTEX short score has also drifted lower this week, from 35.1 on August 14 to 30.8 on August 26, consistent with the improving sentiment picture.
Invesco added 3.7 million shares as of July 31 — the largest institutional position change in the top-holders list — while Fidelity International trimmed by 1.35 million.
What to watch: Whether the options bullishness hardens into a sustained positioning shift into the October earnings, and whether the Mizuho downgrade proves prescient or premature.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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