Morgan Stanley Lifts UTHR Target as Stock Consolidates 12% Rally

Short positioning does not obviously support Goldman's thesis right now, but it has been moving in that direction. Short interest is 6.3% of the free float, up roughly 28% over the past month, a meaningful build that coincides almost precisely with Goldman's initiation on September 24. Even so, the borrow market is far from stressed. Availability is extremely loose at around 3,062%, meaning there are roughly 30 shares available to borrow for every one already shorted, well above the 52-week tightest reading of around 1,024%. Borrowing costs remain near the floor at 0.33% annualised. The cost to borrow has risen 21% on the week and is up roughly 260% over the past month, but from such a low starting point that the absolute level still signals no squeeze pressure. The ORTEX short score is 44, squarely in neutral territory and drifting slightly lower over the past two weeks. Taken together, the lending market says shorts are building gradually but are not yet aggressive enough to create friction.

Options positioning has shifted noticeably since the Goldman initiation. Through most of August and early September, the put/call ratio held in a tight band around 0.74. It climbed above 0.97 in the final week of September before pulling back to 0.83 this week as the stock recovered. The current reading is marginally below the 20-day mean of 0.85, meaning options traders have trimmed their defensive positioning along with the price recovery. The z-score of minus 0.15 is trivially different from neutral. The PCR peaked at 1.82 over the past year and bottomed at zero, so the current level is not at any extreme.

The one piece of real-economy data worth flagging comes from CMS Medicaid records. Medicaid prescriptions for United Therapeutics products have fallen for three consecutive quarters, with 5,208 prescriptions recorded for the quarter ending January 2026. Medicaid reimbursement dollars are down 11% on the same quarter a year earlier, at approximately $75.7 million. None of the company's alt data datasets have been measured as a lead indicator against its reported figures, so these readings describe what is happening in one channel rather than foreshadowing the next print. They are, however, a concrete data point that bears can point to when debating whether volume growth outside the commercial channel is holding up.

CEO and chair Martine Rothblatt filed ten separate sales on October 5, totalling roughly $4.7 million in aggregate proceeds at prices between $536 and $547. All ten transactions were executed under a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan. Planned sales under these programmes carry far less informational weight than discretionary trades; this looks like scheduled liquidity rather than a directional view. The net insider position over the past 90 days is minus 29,280 shares, worth approximately $16.3 million, but again, the 10b5-1 framing applies throughout. Wellington Management is worth noting separately: its 13G/A filing from August 13 shows its stake down to 3.2% from 5.7% previously, meaning Wellington has dropped below the 5% reporting threshold. Stakes are as-last-disclosed around the 5% threshold, and holders dropping below that level may not file again.

With earnings on October 28 and a 21-day runway, the next three weeks will test whether the stock's recovery holds above the Morgan Stanley target of $566 and whether Goldman's $321 bear case finds any traction as the quarter's results come into focus.