Nektar Therapeutics has clawed back 5% over the past week to $60.55. Short sellers have been cutting positions. But the options market tells a different story.
Why this matters: Three distinct signals are now pointing in conflicting directions on NKTR. Shorts are covering, but put buyers are growing more active. The borrow market remains loose. The divergence, set against an earnings call due today, makes the positioning picture worth unpacking.
Short interest has fallen 10% over the past week to 28% of free float, or roughly 5.7 million shares. That is down from a peak near 6.3 million shares in late September. The direction is clear: shorts are reducing exposure.
The borrow market gives them every reason to stay if they chose to. Availability stands at 185%, meaning nearly twice as many shares are available to borrow as are currently out on loan. That is comfortably loose. The cost to borrow sits at 0.46%, low by any measure. There is no squeeze pressure here.
The ORTEX short score stands at 70.3, placing NKTR in the top 12% of stocks by short-score rank. That score has edged lower over the past week from a recent high of 72.7 on September 21, consistent with the modest short covering.
Put-call ratio has climbed sharply since mid-September. It stood at 0.23 on September 18. It reached 0.51 on September 30, 1.96 standard deviations above the 20-day mean of 0.32. The 52-week high is 0.91, so the reading is elevated but not extreme. Still, the direction since the Wedbush target cut on September 23 is unambiguous: options traders are buying more protection.
That cut, from $80 to $50 while maintaining a Neutral rating, sits at the opposite end of the published range from BTIG's standing $178 Buy target. The mean consensus target remains $141.40, implying more than 130% from current levels. The spread reflects genuine disagreement about REZPEG's commercial viability, particularly around injection-site reactions and the litigation overhang following the $90 million jury award.
Two holders stand out in the recent filings. BlackRock added 2.25 million shares as last reported, bringing its stake to 8.6% of shares outstanding. Two Seas Capital added 1.2 million shares to hold 9.8%. FMR (Fidelity) remains the largest disclosed holder at 14.8%. These are material additions from significant institutions, and they run counter to the narrative that only bears are active in NKTR.
Retail attention has also picked up. Wikipedia views data from the Wikimedia Foundation shows a retail attention z-score of 2.0 against Nektar's own 90-day history as of September 22, an elevated reading though not a revenue indicator.
Earnings are scheduled for today, October 1. The last two prints produced negative one-day moves of 4% and a positive 0.9%. With the put-call ratio elevated and short interest still at 28% of float, any clinical disappointment on REZPEG could see the options defensiveness confirmed rapidly. A positive readout would face an unusually wide short base to unwind against, though the loose borrow market means covering pressure would be limited.
Data summary
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