IDACORP heads into the final stretch before its October 29 earnings with shorts rebuilding, options sentiment flipping sharply, and the Street quietly ratcheting targets lower — a combination that deserves attention in what is otherwise a sleepy regulated utility.
The short interest story is the most interesting thread this week. Bears added meaningfully to their position over the past five trading days, pushing short interest up 10.4% on the week to 8.5% of the free float — a level that is elevated for a rate-regulated Idaho electric utility with a largely captive customer base. That weekly build is the standout move: the month-on-month change is a much calmer 1.9%, which means the bulk of the recent pressure arrived in the last few sessions. The borrow market remains accommodating, with availability at roughly 368% — meaning shares to lend still outnumber shares already borrowed by more than three to one — and cost to borrow is a negligible 0.47%. There is no squeeze dynamic here. This is a deliberate, low-cost short rebuild, not a forced position. The ORTEX short score has edged up to 61, consistent with a mildly elevated short-side signal but not an extreme reading.
Options tell a very different story from the short side, and the contrast matters. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.93 — well below its 20-day average of 2.51 and about 1.1 standard deviations below that mean. For most of August and into early September, the ratio was running above 3.0 and briefly touched 4.4, reflecting heavy demand for downside protection. That protection has now been unwound or expired, and the current ratio is near the low end of its 52-week range (floor: 0.55). In short: options traders just became notably less defensive at the same moment that short sellers were adding. The divergence between a rebuilding short base and a retreating put-buyer community is the week's central tension.
The Street is constructive on paper, but the direction of travel is downward. Morgan Stanley's David Arcaro trimmed his target from $151 to $143 on September 18 — the second cut in a month after lowering from $156 to $151 in late August — while keeping an Overweight rating. Barclays cut its target to $162 from $167 in early August, also maintaining Overweight. The consensus mean target of $157 implies roughly 19% upside from the current $131.58 close, but the trajectory matters: targets have been moving in one direction. Wells Fargo upgraded the stock in July from Underweight to Equal-Weight and raised its target to $155, which provides some floor support. The bull case rests on 2.6% customer growth in Idaho Power's service territory and a favorable regulatory environment. Bears flag rate-case risk, a constrained capex outlook, and interest rate sensitivity — all standard utility concerns, but ones that matter more when the stock has already fallen 7.4% over the past month while peers like LNT (-2.5% on the week) and PNW (-2.0%) have held up somewhat better. XEL is the clear laggard among the peer group at -4.2% on the week, suggesting sector-wide pressure rather than an IDA-specific problem, but IDA's -2.9% weekly decline is underperforming most of its closest correlates.
On the ownership side, Capital Research added 864,000 shares as of August 31 — a material addition — while T. Rowe Price added 342,000. Wellington Management, which filed a 13G/A in August, trimmed its stake from 5.2% to 4.4% over the past year, slipping below the 5% threshold. BlackRock remains the dominant holder at 11.8%. None of this signals acute distress, but Wellington's gradual exit bears monitoring. The insider picture is quiet: the most recent disclosed open-market activity was an EVP sale of 1,500 shares in June at $142, and the 90-day net is a modest -$424,000 across officer-level sellers. Nothing alarming, but no buying conviction from the C-suite either.
With earnings on October 29, the recent pattern — the last reported quarter saw the stock slip 1% on the day and 2.4% over the following five sessions — frames the setup. The factor scores add nuance: the dividend score ranks in the 95th percentile, making IDA genuinely appealing for income-focused holders, while the EV/EBIT rank sits near the bottom decile at 17, reflecting a stock that is not cheap on earnings-power metrics. The next six weeks will turn on whether the rebuilding short position reflects a well-founded view on regulatory headwinds, or simply a sector-rotation trade that reverses if utility names catch a bid.
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