PFG Analysts Trim Targets as Shorts Step Back

Principal Financial Group reports Q3 results today with short sellers actually reducing their exposure, even as analysts across the Street have spent the past month cutting price targets.

Short interest in PFG has fallen sharply over the past month, dropping around 16% to 3.8% of the free float. That reversal is meaningful: shorts were running at nearly 10 million shares in mid-September and have since pulled back to around 8.3 million. The borrow market reflects no particular urgency either way. Cost to borrow is a nominal 0.51%, and availability is extraordinarily loose at 1,526%, meaning there are roughly fifteen shares available to borrow for every one currently shorted. Whatever pressure existed in September has largely unwound. The put/call ratio tells a similar story: at 0.37, it sits below its 20-day average of 0.41, and well off the more defensive readings above 0.55 that prevailed in mid-October. Options positioning, in short, is leaning toward calls rather than hedges.

The analyst community has moved in the opposite direction. Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Keefe Bruyette, and Barclays have all trimmed price targets in the past three weeks, though none has changed its rating. The cuts are modest, a dollar or two in most cases, but the direction is consistent: the mean target now sits around $111, barely above the current price of $108.57. Barclays remains the clearest bear at $86, citing the roughly 15% year-over-year drop in Benefits and Protection distribution and the re-pricing actions the company needs to take. The bull case, articulated most clearly by Piper Sandler with a $128 target, rests on improving variable investment income, growth in assets under management, and the strength of the Retirement and Income Solutions segment. The tension is whether that segment can offset the fee-based business outflows that have weighed on results.

Among close peers, the sector sold off broadly on Friday. PRU fell 2.7% on the day, MET dropped 4.6%, and GL lost more than 8%. PFG's own 1.4% single-day decline and roughly flat week look comparatively contained in that context. The stock is down about 4.4% over the past month, pulling back from what had been a strong year-to-date run. Retail attention, measured by Wikipedia page views against the company's own 90-day history, is running at nearly two standard deviations above average, which captures the attention this print is drawing without saying anything about direction.

Today's report will test whether Retirement and Income Solutions can sustain the momentum that drove the stock's 2026 gains, or whether the fee-based outflows and Benefits and Protection weakness are broad enough to validate the cautious repositioning analysts have signalled with their quiet but steady round of target cuts.