Eli Lilly and Company heads into the final stretch before its October 29 Q3 earnings with the Street turning more bullish, shorts at their lowest levels in months, and options traders in an unusually steady equilibrium.
The most significant development this week came from the analyst community. JP Morgan's Chris Schott raised his price target to $1,500 on September 28, up from $1,400, while maintaining an Overweight rating. That lands 27% above the current price of $1,184.63 and is the most aggressive call from a major bank in recent weeks. The broader consensus mean target has settled at $1,329, implying about 12% upside from here. The direction of travel is clear: Guggenheim and Truist both lifted targets earlier this month, and the only meaningful dissent remains HSBC, which raised its Reduce target to $940 but is firmly in the minority. The bull case rests on Mounjaro's commercial momentum, a pipeline bolstered by the recent Inluriyo approval in metastatic breast cancer, and an estimated 18% EPS CAGR through 2032. Bears point to concentration risk around a handful of products, pricing pressure, and execution risk on pipeline readouts including donanemab's EU filing and a cognitively unimpaired Alzheimer's trial expected around 2027.
Short positioning is not a story that demands much attention at these levels. Shares short fell 12.9% over the past week to 7.25 million, or 0.81% of free float, continuing the full reversal of the summer rebuild that peaked around 8.55 million shares in mid-September. As documented in the September 28 stock report, the covering cycle is effectively complete. Borrowing costs remain negligible at 0.36%, and share availability in the lending pool is essentially unlimited. There is no squeeze dynamic, no friction, and nothing in the lending market to suggest the current short level is under any pressure. The short score has held in a tight band around 30 over the past two weeks, consistent with a stock where bears have largely stepped aside.
Options traders are equally composed. The put/call ratio at 1.17 is almost exactly in line with its 20-day average of 1.17, producing a z-score near zero. That marks a meaningful shift from the elevated defensive positioning seen through August, when the PCR ran closer to 1.28 to 1.34. The 52-week high on the PCR is 1.37, and the current reading is well below that. Investors are neither bracing for a drop nor aggressively positioned for a move higher into earnings. The factor scores support the picture of a stable, well-regarded name: the analyst recommendation differential ranks in the 92nd percentile of the universe, EPS momentum scores at the 78th percentile on a 30-day view, and the short score rank at the 84th percentile reflects how thoroughly the bearish camp has retreated.
One data point worth noting from the alt data layer: Medicaid reimbursement dollars for Lilly products were running 14% above Q1 last year, according to CMS drug utilisation data for the period ending January 2026. None of the datasets in coverage has been measured to lead Lilly's reported revenue figures, so this is colour rather than a signal. Still, a 14% year-on-year increase in Medicaid reimbursement volume confirms that prescribing trends remained firm into early 2026, consistent with the strong commercial Mounjaro figures cited in the bull case.
With 29 days to the Q3 print, the setup is cleaner than it was entering Q2. The last two earnings reactions were both positive: the stock gained 6.8% on the day after the August report and 2.7% after the May release. What to watch now is whether the JP Morgan target raise draws further upgrades toward the $1,400 to $1,500 range, and whether options traders begin pricing in larger moves as the October 29 date approaches.
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