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BULL heads into its October 30 earnings date with a stock down 25% over the past month, short interest at its highest level in six weeks, and the CEO's shareholding structure shifting in a way that warrants a closer look.
The most striking development in the ownership register is a transaction logged on September 30 by CEO Wang Anquan. He converted 25 million shares under transaction code "C", a conversion rather than an open-market purchase, leaving his reported stake at 84 million shares, or roughly 15.6% of the company. Separately, his 13G/A filing from October 2 shows his disclosed stake at 18.1% on 97.9 million shares, a figure that includes holdings not reflected in the trading-item tally. The divergence between the two numbers is worth flagging. Over the same 90-day window, insider activity in aggregate has been net negative: roughly 321,000 shares sold for a combined loss of around $2.8 million in proceeds. President Anthony Denier has been selling in regular clips of roughly 54,000 shares at a time under a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan, so those sales carry limited signal. The CFO's September 14 disposal of 55,000 shares for roughly $494,000 was not under a plan, which makes it the more notable of the two.
Short positioning has been building quietly. Short interest has risen 38% over the past month to 8.7% of the free float, equivalent to about 36.3 million shares. The weekly gain was modest at just under 1%, but the month-long trend is clear: bears have been adding exposure as the stock has weakened. Despite that, the borrow market is far from stressed. Availability is extremely loose at roughly 1,547%, meaning there are more than fifteen shares available to lend for every one already borrowed. Cost to borrow is negligible at 0.33% annualised, though it has tripled over the past month from a very low base. Options traders are not adding to the bearish tone. The put/call ratio at 0.21 is barely above its 20-day average of 0.20 and sits toward the lower end of its 52-week range of 0.13 to 0.50. That combination, growing short interest alongside very loose borrow and a calm options market, looks more like measured repositioning than a conviction short.
The street view on BULL is split but tilted toward patience. The mean analyst price target of $12.75 implies roughly 75% upside from the current $7.28 close, though the coverage is narrow. Rosenblatt has maintained a Buy rating through the recent selloff, raising its target to $15 after the August results before holding it there. Scotiabank initiated in early September at Sector Perform with a $9 target, a more cautious read that effectively brackets the stock between "fairly valued here" and "worth paying up for". The factor picture reinforces the two-sided story: earnings momentum and surprise rank very strongly (90th percentile on EPS surprise, 97th percentile on 90-day EPS momentum), but the short score ranks in only the 23rd percentile, reflecting the bears' growing interest. The trailing PE has compressed roughly nine turns over the past month to just under 25 times, which puts it in a more reasonable range than it was trading at earlier in the year.
The August results that Rosenblatt rewarded with its target lift were genuinely strong. Revenue rose 55% year-on-year to $156.9 million, equity volumes surged, and client margin balances hit $689 million, up 43%. The bear case centres on what happened next: crypto volumes fell sharply in the quarter following those results, and Q4 revenue estimates were cut by around 30%. The stock's 25% one-month decline reflects that reset. Close peers have also had a rough week. HOOD fell 3.6% on the week and COIN dropped 2.3%, while IBKR bucked the trend with a 5.1% gain, suggesting the pressure is partly sector-specific and partly idiosyncratic to names with heavier retail and crypto exposure.
Wikipedia attention data from ORTEX Alt Data shows retail interest in the stock running well below its own 90-day norm, a z-score of negative 2.6 as of early September, which aligns with the broader pattern of the stock losing retail attention as it has drifted lower. There are no measured leading datasets for Webull's financials in the alt data coverage, so that reading is context rather than signal.
With the October 30 print now 23 days out, the key tension is whether the Q3 trading environment recovered enough to stabilise the post-August estimate cuts, or whether crypto and retail volume trends stayed soft through the summer months.
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