Raymond James Shorts at Lows While Peers Face More Pressure

Among the closest wealth-management and brokerage peers, RJF carries one of the lighter short positions in the group. SF, AMP, LPLA and SCHW all fell between 1.3% and 1.7% over the past week, while Raymond James edged up 0.6% over the same period. Short interest in Raymond James now stands at 3.2% of the free float, the lowest reading in at least a year after a 21% drop over the past month.

The borrow market reinforces that picture. Availability is extraordinarily loose at roughly 4,093%, meaning shares to borrow outnumber those already borrowed by a wide margin. Borrowing costs run at 0.42% annually, unremarkable by any measure. The put/call ratio at 0.56 is nearly 1.7 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.64, pointing to call-side activity rather than defensive hedging into the October 28 print. The stock closed at $157.70, about 14% below the analyst consensus target of $183.86.

The debate heading into results centres on whether Raymond James can sustain its wealth-management revenue against mounting pressure on net interest income and private client profitability. The bull case rests on the firm's more than 8,900 advisors managing over $1.7 trillion in client assets, $1.8 billion in excess capital, and the prospect that AI-driven cross-sell improvements offset higher compensation costs. The bear case is more immediate: quarter-to-date market impacts and weaker sweep-deposit economics are already squeezing margins, investment banking came in below expectations last quarter, and several analysts trimmed targets in early October. Morgan Stanley cut its target to $171 from $174 while Truist moved to $166 from $188, whereas Barclays and Bank of America both lifted targets modestly, keeping an uneven tone across the Street. Raymond James's EPS momentum ranks in the 97th percentile over 30 days and 95th over 90 days, suggesting the revision trend remains positive even as near-term margin pressure builds.

FDIC call report data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation shows Raymond James's insured bank charter has recorded nine consecutive quarters of rising net loans and leases, reaching $56.2 billion in the April 2026 period, and six consecutive quarters of total asset growth to $69.9 billion. The alt-data lead status for this dataset is untested, meaning no measured relationship to the company's reported earnings has yet been established, so these figures describe the bank's balance sheet trajectory rather than foreshadowing the print.

The one reading that would change the short-interest picture materially is a sustained move back toward the 7.5 to 8 million share range seen in late September and early October, when short interest was roughly double current levels. The October 28 print will test whether the NII and margin pressure the bears have been pricing in is as severe as revised estimates imply, or whether the wealth-management franchise absorbs it.