ONEOK Q3 Results Land with Shorts at Multi-Month Lows

ONEOK delivered its Q3 results on October 30 with short sellers at their least aggressive in months. Short interest came into the print at 3.66% of free float, down 16% over the past month and well below the mid-September peak of roughly 31.7 million shares.

The borrow market reinforces that picture. Availability has loosened further this week, jumping 22% to reach 630%, meaning more than six shares are available for every one currently lent out. Cost to borrow is 0.49%, down 11% on the week and at the low end of the range held throughout the autumn. Nothing in the lending market points to fresh short conviction. The ORTEX short score is 46.3, broadly neutral and flat for two weeks.

Options positioning matches the same lack of urgency. Calls outnumber puts by a wide margin, with the put/call ratio at 0.35, only modestly above its 20-day average of 0.34 and far below the 52-week high of 0.60. The stock pulled back 1.5% on October 28 to $94.54 but remains up 6.7% over the past month. That weekly gain of 1.5% trails the median of roughly 1.8% across its closest midstream peers, with TRGP up 3.5% and ET up 2.9% over the same period.

The Q3 print will test whether ONEOK's diversified midstream platform and post-acquisition integration have delivered the EBITDA growth that has attracted steady institutional accumulation, with Capital Research and Management adding nearly 4.8 million shares in the most recent quarter.