Harrow, Inc. heads into the final week of September with a peculiar split: options traders are the most bullish they've been all year, while short sellers are quietly adding to an already-heavy position — and borrow availability is snapping tighter.
The lending market tells the most urgent story this week. Availability dropped to just 18.3% on September 24, down nearly a quarter from where it stood a week earlier — meaning fewer than one share remains available for every five already on loan. That's close to the tightest the borrow pool has been over the past year; the 52-week low was 10.4% hit on September 11. Short interest itself rose nearly 8% in a single session on September 24, pushing the SI percentage of free float to just under 20%. That level has been grinding higher through September, up roughly 5% over the month. FINRA's most recent fortnightly print — settlement date September 15 — put short shares at 7.49 million with a days-to-cover reading above 15. Days-to-cover at that level means shorts would need over three weeks of average trading volume to exit cleanly. Cost to borrow, meanwhile, has climbed 43% over the past month, reaching 1.19% — still not punishing in absolute terms, but the direction is clear.
Options positioning cuts the other way entirely. The put/call ratio has fallen to 0.156, the lowest reading of the past 52 weeks, and is running 1.5 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.18. That's the most call-skewed options market HROW has seen all year. The divergence is worth noting: short sellers are rebuilding exposure through the stock-loan market while options traders are positioned for upside. One of those two camps is going to be wrong.
The Street is firmly in the bull camp, though with some nuance. All nine analysts covering Harrow rate it Buy or equivalent. The consensus mean target is $65, implying roughly 97% upside from the current $33 level. Leerink Partners initiated coverage earlier this month with an Outperform and a $45 target — more conservative than the rest of the Street but directionally aligned. BTIG has maintained its $63 Buy through multiple checks this year. Cantor Fitzgerald trimmed its target twice since March but kept its Overweight. The analyst divergence is really between the upper end of the range — Cantor still at $88 — and the more cautious new money at $45. The ORTEX analyst recommendation factor ranks in the 97th percentile, the highest possible expression of Street consensus. EPS surprise ranks at the 90th percentile. On valuation, the PE multiple has compressed nearly 28% over the past 30 days to just over 15x, while EV/EBITDA has eased to 9.2x — a meaningful re-rating lower as the stock has shed 20% over the past month. The bear case centres on biosimilar competition and a crowded dry-eye market limiting the growth multiple the stock can sustain; bulls point to the compounding pharmacy franchise, growing revenues, and a management team with skin in the game.
That last point is worth unpacking. Mark Baum, the CEO, carries a 13D/A filing on the register — an activist-flagged Schedule 13D — disclosing a stake of approximately 10.7% as last filed in April 2025. He added 10,000 shares in an open-market purchase in May at $30.20, not under a 10b5-1 plan, alongside CFO Andrew Boll who bought 3,500 shares at $29.90 the same day. Two directors also made open-market purchases in May near the same price. The net insider picture over the trailing 90 days is modestly negative — roughly 9,250 net shares sold, dragged by the CSO's option exercise and sale in August — but the discretionary May cluster from the CEO, CFO, and two directors at prices just below current levels stands out as a signal of conviction around the $30 floor. Opaleye Management, a passive 13G holder, has been trimming — down from 7.61% to 6.44% in its most recent filing — providing some of the supply that shorts may be absorbing. The 13D/G disclosure caveat applies: stakes are as last disclosed, and holders dropping below 5% may not file again.
Earnings are next scheduled for November 12. The last two quarterly prints produced modest negative reactions — the stock fell roughly 3% and 2.5% on the day in the most recent reports, with the weakness persisting into the five-day window. The ORTEX short score sits at 82.8, near the top of its recent range, ranking in the 2nd percentile of the universe for short-seller pressure. With borrow tightening sharply, SI near a 20% float ratio, and the stock down 20% in a month, the setup heading into the November print — and whether the $30 support level that drew insider buying in May holds in the interim — is the key tension to monitor.
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