Nomura Options Turn Cautious Before Tuesday Print

Nomura Holdings reports second-quarter results on October 27, with options traders growing more defensive just as the stock slides toward a monthly low.

The shift in options positioning is the clearest signal ahead of the release. The put/call ratio has climbed to 0.77, well above its 20-day average of 0.58, putting it roughly 0.9 standard deviations above the recent mean. That marks a sharp reversal from mid-October, when the PCR spent two weeks below 0.47. The stock itself has dropped 10% over the past month to $8.98, including a 2.8% retreat on the week, though borrow conditions tell a different story entirely.

The lending market shows no meaningful bearish pressure. Availability is ample at more than 2,100% of short interest, meaning shares to borrow far outstrip what is already on loan. Short interest has actually fallen about 4% in the past session and is down roughly 2% on the week, running around 991,000 shares. Cost to borrow is a modest 1.38%, though that figure has roughly doubled over the past month, tracking the quarter-end spike in short demand that briefly pushed availability much tighter in late September before normalising in October.

The most notable ownership development is BlackRock's position. A Schedule 13G/A filed in April 2025 showed the firm had trimmed its stake to 7.2% from 9.7%. More recent institutional data shows BlackRock holding around 277 million shares at 9.5% of the company, suggesting partial rebuilding of the position. Norges Bank Investment Management added more than 8 million shares in the June quarter, a meaningful addition for a name with a $26.5 billion market cap.

JP Morgan upgraded Nomura to Overweight in March 2026, the most recent analyst move of note. Beyond that, the analyst record for this name is thin and mostly dated, so the Street's formal view carries limited weight heading into the print. The ORTEX short score of 28.9 ranks in the 81st percentile for short positioning, pointing to a relatively low short interest footprint by the stock's own history, consistent with the loose availability picture.

The October 27 print will test whether Nomura's domestic trading momentum, which drove strong scores and a run toward 52-week highs earlier this year, has held up as the stock has given back nearly 10% over the past month.