SNOW closes September with short sellers edging back in, even as analysts sit firmly in the bull camp and the borrow market stays wide open.
The short interest story is the most notable tension this week. Bears have rebuilt positions by roughly 5.4% over the past five trading days, pushing short interest to 5.7% of the free float. That is a meaningful move in absolute terms, around one million additional shares borrowed, and it comes after months of relative stability in the 4 to 5% range. Yet the lending market tells a different story about squeeze risk: availability is extremely loose at 1,665%, meaning there are roughly 16 shares available to borrow for every one already lent out. Borrow costs have actually fallen over the month, with the cost to borrow down 25% from August levels to just 0.37%. Bears are not fighting for access to stock, and the conditions for a lending squeeze do not exist right now.
Options sentiment looks broadly neutral. The put/call ratio of 0.78 is almost exactly in line with its 20-day average of 0.79, with a z-score of negative 0.44. That means options traders have not tilted defensively ahead of December earnings, nor have they chased calls. The 52-week low on the PCR was 0.51, and the high was 0.89, the current reading is squarely mid-range. One wrinkle worth noting: on September 28, the PCR spiked to 0.89, the year's high, then retreated to 0.78 the next day. That one-day spike may simply reflect quarterly roll dynamics, but it is a data point worth tracking if it repeats.
The Street is firmly constructive, and the target upgrades following the September 2 earnings print were substantial. Goldman Sachs raised its target from $300 to $436, JP Morgan moved from $285 to $426, and Piper Sandler lifted its target from $320 to $450, all while maintaining positive ratings. The broad direction was the same across the 10-plus firms that updated: nearly every one raised targets by 30 to 50% in a single adjustment. At $330, the stock now trades at a 22% discount to the consensus mean target of $425. The bull case centres on accelerating AI-driven workloads, successful customer migrations and a cloud-native architecture that is proving sticky. The bear case is valuation: the stock trades at roughly 18 times NTM recurring revenue, a level that leaves little room for any revenue deceleration or competitive pressure from major cloud vendors. The EPS momentum factor score of 95 out of 100 reflects how sharply estimates have moved in one direction since the print, and the analyst recommendation divergence score of 98 flags that the Street's positive lean is near a consensus extreme.
On ORTEX's alt data layer, retail attention has been elevated. The Wikipedia pageviews signal produced a z-score of 2.79 in early September, its highest reading relative to the prior 90 days, suggesting above-average retail interest around the earnings event. That attention-based signal has no verified link to Snowflake's financial figures, so it is colour rather than a forward indicator, but elevated retail engagement around a stock trading at a premium multiple is a variable worth watching if sentiment turns.
Insider flow adds a layer of caution. Net insider sales over the past 90 days total roughly $127.6 million, a meaningful number. The most notable single transaction was director Benoit Dageville's sale of 50,000 shares for approximately $16.95 million on September 23, conducted under a 10b5-1 plan. Pre-arranged sales under 10b5-1 plans carry less signal than discretionary ones, but the aggregate net selling across the senior team is worth noting in the context of a stock that has re-rated sharply higher this year. The Chief Revenue Officer's open-market sale of 755 shares outside a 10b5-1 plan was small in dollar terms but was not pre-arranged.
MDB is the most correlated peer at 65%, and it has fallen 21% over the past week, a sharp divergence from SNOW's more modest 1.9% weekly decline. OKTA moved in the opposite direction, rising 4.2% on the week. The contrast matters: if MDB's drop reflects sector-level repricing of high-multiple software rather than a company-specific event, SNOW may face similar pressure in the coming sessions, given that both names carry elevated valuation multiples and similar growth profiles.
With the next earnings event on December 2, the main thing to watch is whether short interest continues to rebuild toward the upper end of its recent range and whether the borrow market begins to tighten, which would change the cost calculus for any bear rebuilding positions.
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