Piper Sandler lifts BMY target to $82 as shorts retreat

Options traders at BMY are flashing their most defensive posture in weeks, just as short sellers quietly cover — and a fresh analyst upgrade adds a layer of conviction to the bull case.

The most striking move this week came from the options market. The put/call ratio reached 0.977, more than two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.922 — the most elevated hedging demand BMY has seen in recent months. That reading sits well above the level that has prevailed for most of the past six weeks, where the PCR clustered between 0.895 and 0.955. The shift signals that options buyers are paying more for downside protection even as the stock trades at $63.73, down just 1.5% on the week and essentially flat over the past month.

Short positioning tells a contrasting story — and the contrast is worth naming. Shorts have been retreating steadily. Short interest dropped roughly 9% over the week to about 2.1% of free float, continuing a decline that has been running since early September when positions were closer to 2.3% of float. The borrow market remains almost comically unconstrained: availability is effectively unlimited, with the lending pool holding well over a billion shares available against what is borrowed. Cost to borrow is up nearly 48% week-on-week to 0.46%, but that remains very cheap in absolute terms — a level that creates no meaningful friction for new short positions. The ORTEX short score has drifted lower all week, settling at 33.9, reinforcing the picture of a stock where short-side pressure is genuinely easing rather than building.

The Street angle is where the week's real energy is concentrated. Piper Sandler's David Amsellem lifted his BMY target from $75 to $82 this morning while reiterating Overweight — the highest target in the recent-change set and the only move from a sector-specialist firm in the past 48 hours. That $82 target sits 29% above the current price, which is a material premium to the consensus mean of $66.71. The broader analyst backdrop is constructive without being aggressive: JP Morgan raised its target to $73 following the July earnings print, Guggenheim went to $75, and Argus upgraded the name outright to Buy in early August. The more cautious voices — HSBC at $65, Wells Fargo at $65, RBC at $64 — cluster near or below current levels, suggesting the debate is genuinely live. Bulls point to Growth Product momentum, Eliquis durability, and M&A optionality; bears flag pipeline-failure risk, competition in cardiovascular and oncology, and the company's heavy dependence on the US market. The PE of 9.5x and EV/EBITDA of 8.9x are undemanding multiples that give bulls a valuation floor argument, while the dividend factor score ranks in the 99th percentile — a reminder that BMY's income profile remains a structural support for holders.

T. Rowe Price stands out among institutional holders for a different reason. Their reported position increased by more than 21 million shares to about 31.7 million shares as of July — by far the largest addition among the top fifteen holders. BlackRock and State Street also added meaningfully in their most recent reporting periods. Insider activity over the past 90 days is modest and net negative, reflecting small open-market sales by the Chief Medical Officer and Controller totaling around $437,000 — hardly a conviction signal in either direction at this level of capitalization. The insider transactions flagged as option exercises and tax-withholding events carry even less signal.

BMY reports its next quarter on October 29. The July print produced a 3.5% one-day rally and the stock held most of those gains through the subsequent week. The October print arrives with the put/call ratio elevated, the Street broadly constructive but divided on the upside case, and shorts near a multi-week low — making the catalyst less about whether the business is growing and more about whether the pipeline readouts scheduled in the weeks ahead can validate the more aggressive targets now on the table.