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MMED has reported, the stock barely moved on the week, and yet the short position keeps growing, making the post-earnings setup the more interesting story than the print itself.
The stock closed at $19.71 on Friday, up just 0.05% on the week after a 0.5% dip on Friday. That flat tape masks a striking divergence in the lending market. Availability tightened to as low as 0.08% on October 6, the floor of the past year, before recovering fractionally to 1.12% by October 8. That still means roughly one share remains for every 89 already lent out. Cost to borrow, which was near 4% six weeks ago, hit 42.7% on October 8, more than doubling in a single week and rising more than four-fold over the past month. Short interest itself reached 29.3 million shares, up 34% on the week and 266% over the past month. The short score has stayed anchored between 90 and 94 for two weeks, a sustained extreme reading rather than a passing spike. The FINRA official settlement figure from September 30 put shares short at 18.2 million, which means the bulk of the current build is post-report. Bears added rather than covered after the print.
Options traders are reading the room differently. The put/call ratio has eased to 0.90, about 0.8 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 1.05. That is a moderately call-skewed setup: options participants are not rushing for protection even as the short book reaches record levels. It is a less dramatic split than the one flagged in the pre-earnings notes, when the PCR sat near 0.84 against a then-higher average, but the directional divergence between the borrow market and options positioning remains intact. One side is maximally committed to the short; the other is not hedging.
The Street is broadly constructive, with multiple firms having lifted targets after the September 1 Q1 report. Mizuho raised its target to $28 on October 8, the same day short interest hit its latest high. Barclays initiated at Equal-Weight with a $22 target on October 7. Truist started coverage with a Buy and a $29 target in late September. The mean target across analysts sits near $24.85, roughly 26% above Friday's close. The bull case centres on the post-Medtronic spin structure, Q1 organic growth of 15.8%, CGM attachment near 69%, and a product cycle spanning Flex, Fit, Go, and Vivera. Bears point to slower growth than peers, stand-up costs limiting margin expansion, and concentration risk through Abbott's exclusive CGM supply. The P/E is near 30.5 and EV/EBITDA near 8.1, both down modestly over the past month as the stock has pulled back 15% in 30 days.
The ownership picture is unusual for a newly independent company. Medtronic holds 89.9% of shares per a 13G filing from May, filed as a passive disclosure. The remaining institutional base is thin: Massachusetts Financial Services holds about 3%, with Millennium, Citadel, and a handful of smaller funds filling out the rest. BlackRock added almost its entire current position of roughly 2 million shares by September 30. With Medtronic's block so dominant, the free float is small relative to total shares outstanding, which amplifies the mechanics of any borrow squeeze. The 29.3 million shares short are being fought over within a very limited lending pool.
The next scheduled event is an earnings call on October 16. With the short position still rising after the Q1 print and borrow availability near historic lows, the question going into that date is whether the short book begins to unwind or whether bears find new reasons to press further at a 42% cost to carry.
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