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Hawaiian Electric Industries arrives at the first week of October with fresh analyst cuts landing on a stock already down 19% in a month, while short interest quietly rebuilds and options traders take the most bullish stance of the past year.
The most immediate development is from Jefferies. On October 7, analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith lowered his price target to $7.00 from $8.75, maintaining his Underperform rating. That puts Jefferies 22% below the current price of $8.93. The move matters because it marks yet another step-down from a firm that has been consistently bearish: the Jefferies target has now fallen from $13.75 in July to $11.75, then $8.75, now $7.00 in three cuts over three months. Barclays moved similarly last week, cutting to $9.00 from $12.00. Ladenburg Thalmann, which initiated with a Sell and $7.00 target in September, now has company at the bottom of the range. The consensus mean target has slipped to $8.63, fractionally below where the stock closed on Tuesday. For a stock that was already trading with almost no implied upside, the Jefferies cut pushes the distribution of Street targets firmly into bearish territory. The $7.00 floor cited by two separate firms is 22% below the current price and represents what the most negative analysts consider fair value today.
Short interest is rebuilding after a brief retreat in mid-September. Shorts had trimmed positions from roughly 19.3 million shares in early September to around 16.6 million by September 25, but since then the position has grown back to 17.9 million shares, representing 10.4% of the free float. The week-on-week increase is 3.7%, and the one-month change is just over 5%. Despite the rising share count, borrow conditions remain loose: availability is running at around 505% of short interest, meaning shares available to borrow are five times the current short position. Cost to borrow is just 0.45%, up 8% on the week but still close to the lowest levels of the past 30 days. There is no squeeze pressure here. The ORTEX short score is 60.8, steady over the past two weeks and consistent with elevated but not extreme bearish positioning.
Options tell a strikingly different story from the short sellers. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.31, nearly two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.33, and close to the 52-week low of 0.28. Call volume is dominating put volume by a wider margin than at almost any point in the past year, against a 52-week high PCR of 0.97. That contrast is sharp: while short sellers are adding, options traders are not reaching for downside protection. One possible interpretation is that options participants are positioning for a relief rally or a less-bad-than-feared outcome at the November 6 earnings event. The prior earnings print on August 7 produced a 6.5% single-day decline and a 6.1% five-day loss, so the historical reaction function is negative.
On the ownership side, one number stands out from the 13D/G register. The Vanguard Group disclosed in March that it had reduced its stake to zero from 11.24% previously. That is a material exit from one of the stock's largest passive holders, and it occurred while T. Rowe Price Investment Management separately trimmed from 6.9% to 3.9% in its February filing. As always with 13D/G disclosures, stakes are as-last-disclosed around the 5% threshold and holders who drop below 5% may not file again. BlackRock remains the largest disclosed holder at roughly 14.7% per its April filing, and Horizon Kinetics has built to 12.5%, making it the second largest. The divergence between an index giant exiting and a value-oriented manager building is an unusual ownership dynamic for a stock this distressed.
Sector peers have had a better week. PNW rose nearly 5% and NRG added 6.6%, while HE gave back 1.7%. The underperformance against the broader utility sector remains the defining feature of the story, with the Maui wildfire liability overhang keeping sentiment separated from the group's otherwise more constructive backdrop. With the next earnings print on November 6, thirty days away, the main variable to watch is whether the Jefferies $7.00 target floor draws further analyst alignment or becomes an outlier on the low end.
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