FactSet Research Systems heads into its September 24 earnings print with short interest at an elevated 11.7% of free float — and climbing — even as the stock jumped 9.3% on the week to $283.83.
The tension between a sharply rising share price and accelerating short interest is the defining story this week. Short interest has climbed 24.6% over seven days to roughly 4.4 million shares, adding almost 870,000 shares to the borrow since September 10. That puts SI at the highest level in the 30-day lookback window. The borrow market remains relaxed — availability is at 229%, well into normal territory, and cost to borrow is just 0.50%. There is no squeeze pressure here. What there is instead is a growing camp of shorts willing to pay the price to lean against a stock that has run hard into a result. Options tell the same story from a different angle: the put/call ratio has fallen to 2.49 from above 3.0 earlier in September, but at 2.49 it remains structurally put-heavy, running 1.3 standard deviations below the 20-day average of 2.82. That may look like less caution than a month ago, but with a PCR still nearly seven times the broad-market norm, the options market has been consistently hedged throughout this rally.
Street opinion has moved sharply in one direction this week — up — though conviction is divided. Morgan Stanley raised its target from $230 to $300 while maintaining Equal-Weight on September 10, a notable move that acknowledges the re-rating without endorsing it. Deutsche Bank followed the next day, lifting to $299 from $280 with a Hold intact. William Blair is the outlier, upgrading outright to Outperform on September 8. Barclays remains the most visible bear, keeping Underweight despite raising its target to $250 — well below the current print of $283.83. The mean consensus target sits at $265.56, roughly 6% below where the stock is trading, which by itself reflects how quickly the share price has moved through what the Street modelled. EPS momentum is a standout in factor space, ranking in the 98th percentile on the 30-day measure and 90th on the 90-day read. Analyst recommendation divergence also ranks in the 95th percentile — meaning FactSet has a wider spread of views than almost any comparable stock in the universe. The short-score factor rank sits at just 10, flagging elevated short-seller interest relative to peers.
Baron Capital Group remains the dominant institutional voice, adding 444,000 shares as of June 30 to hold 11.8% of the company — a position large enough that its last 13G/A filing, dated August 14, lifted its disclosed stake from 10.2% to 11.8%. Baron's continued accumulation during a period when FactSet's stock was under pressure gives the institutional picture a constructive lean. No 13D activist has appeared on the register. AQR added a notable 1.36 million shares in the June quarter, representing the single largest reported quarterly institutional addition in the data. All stakes are as last disclosed and subject to the usual caveat: holders who fall below 5% are not required to refile.
The earnings history argues for keeping expectations open. FactSet's July 1, 2026 Q3 report produced an 8.7% one-day gain and a 7.7% five-day follow-through — the kind of result that likely accelerated this week's short build, as bearish investors reset positions ahead of a potentially similar move. The prior event, reported June 18, delivered a 4.2% one-day drop and an 8.5% five-day loss. Two data points do not make a pattern, but they illustrate that FactSet's post-earnings range has been wide in both directions. Management's cautious 2027 guidance note — acknowledged in recent commentary — is the bear camp's clearest line of attack, alongside the structural competition argument from cloud-native analytics platforms pressing on FactSet's institutional buy-side franchise.
The setup going into September 24 is therefore less about whether FactSet can beat the quarter and more about whether guidance gives bears the validation they have spent this week paying to position for.
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