BUD heads into its September 22 earnings release with short sellers rebuilding positions at a pace not seen this year, creating a notable tension with an analyst community that broadly believes the stock is cheap.
The clearest pre-earnings signal is the rapid growth in short interest. Bearish positioning has climbed 37% over the past month to roughly 8.2 million shares — the bulk of that move arriving in the first two weeks of September. One week alone accounted for a 17% jump. That is a meaningful acceleration for a mega-cap brewer, even if the absolute level remains modest relative to the float. The borrow market tells a more nuanced story: availability has loosened back to around 89% after tightening sharply to 42% as recently as September 11, while the cost to borrow has eased 41% over the past week to just 1.2%. The combination — rising shorts, but looser borrow — suggests fresh positioning rather than a hard-to-execute squeeze. Options, meanwhile, are leaning slightly bullish. The put/call ratio of 0.65 sits a touch below its 20-day average, with the z-score at -1.25, meaning call demand is running modestly above the recent norm rather than traders reaching for downside protection.
The bull case rests on a meaningful gap between price and analyst targets. The Street's mean price target of $97 implies roughly 25% upside from BUD's current $77.73, and that consensus was refreshed as recently as this week. Wells Fargo raised its target to $97 after the last quarterly print, maintaining its Overweight. Barclays moved to the sidelines in late July with a downgrade to Equal-Weight — the clearest note of caution from a major house heading into this print. Bears will focus on the 12-month forward earnings growth score, which ranks in just the 14th percentile of the ORTEX universe, suggesting the market already sees limited near-term earnings acceleration. The EV/EBITDA multiple of 9.3x has drifted lower over the past month, reflecting either value accumulation or a market hedging macro risks around emerging-market volume exposure and currency. BUD's EPS surprise history is a genuine bull talking point — the company ranks at the 93rd percentile for beating estimates — which may be one reason call buyers are mildly more active than put buyers ahead of Tuesday.
Ownership here is unusually concentrated. The founding family structure and Altria's 8% stake mean the free float is structurally limited, a fact reflected in the 52-week availability low of just 1.6%. Both Jorge Paulo Lemann and Altria appear on the Schedule 13D register as activists — as-last-disclosed positions — making any shift in their stated intent far more significant than typical institutional flows. Among active managers, GQG Partners added more than 2.6 million shares through June 30, one of the larger incremental conviction moves in the holder list. BlackRock and Capital Research also added modestly through August.
Tuesday's report will test whether AB InBev's EPS beat streak holds in a period when shorts are quickly rebuilding — and whether volume trends in key emerging markets justify the wide gap between the current price and where analysts think the stock should trade.
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