AXP Bulls Load Up on Calls Ahead of Thursday Print

American Express heads into its October 23 Q3 earnings release with options markets running the most bullish they have been all year.

The options signal is the standout. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.56, more than two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.63. That is the most call-heavy reading since at least the start of the year, with the PCR now within touching distance of its 52-week low of 0.46. Calls have been accumulating steadily over the past two weeks as the put/call ratio fell from the mid-0.60s to where it stands today. The borrow market adds no tension: short interest is just 1.6% of the free float, availability is essentially unlimited, and borrowing costs have fallen 24% over the week to 0.23%. Short sellers are not a meaningful part of the setup going into this print.

The bullish options tilt runs headlong into a cautious analyst community. Target prices have been trimmed at nearly every firm that covers the stock in the past three weeks. JP Morgan cut its target from $400 to $360 on October 12, keeping an Overweight rating but signalling less conviction at current levels. Morgan Stanley also lowered to $380. UBS and Barclays made more aggressive cuts, to $345 and $342 respectively, both sitting just above where the stock now trades at $316.41. BMO Capital bucked the trend, initiating with Outperform and a $380 target. The mean target of $369 implies about 17% upside, but the direction of travel has been firmly lower. Bulls point to accelerating new account growth in consumer and commercial segments as a structural offset to weaker same-customer spending, plus a high-quality cardholder base that has historically been more resilient in downturns. Bears argue that new card acquisition fell both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year last time out, and that the company needs to cut marketing spend to meet its own 2026 earnings targets, a combination that puts the revenue growth trajectory at risk.

The one genuinely distinctive ownership fact is Berkshire Hathaway's 22.5% stake, reported as of June 30 with no change. It anchors a relatively stable shareholder base, with the other large holders, BlackRock and Vanguard, each making only modest adjustments in recent filings. The FDIC call reports data published by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation shows AXP's insured bank charters posted their largest Q2 net income on record (since 2024 data coverage began) at $1.96 billion, and largest Q2 total assets on record at $214 billion. Neither dataset has yet been tested as a leading indicator for the reported earnings figure, so the readings are context rather than a directional signal for the print.

The October 23 report will test whether the strong call positioning reflects genuine confidence in a Q3 beat, or whether it simply reflects a market that has already absorbed the valuation reset and is positioned for any positive surprise, however modest, to move a stock that has given back 16.7% year to date.