CHDN Bears Keep Building as Earnings Arrive

Short sellers have continued pressing their case against CHDN since the last note eight days ago, and the data now looks more charged heading into today's print.

Bearish positioning has extended further. Short interest has climbed to 8.5% of the free float, up from the 7.8% reported on October 21, with the week-on-week gain now running at 8.7% and the 30-day increase at 30%. The ORTEX short score has risen to 55.2, up from 51.7 a week ago, its highest reading in the available history. The borrow market, however, remains loose: cost to borrow has actually eased slightly to 0.53%, and availability at 503% of short interest means new shorts face no friction in sourcing stock. This is still a story of growing bear conviction rather than a stressed or squeezed setup, but the pace of accumulation has visibly accelerated.

Options positioning has shifted in a different direction. The put/call ratio has pulled back to 5.25, well below its 20-day average of 6.98, putting it roughly 1.35 standard deviations below the recent mean. That is a notable change in tone: options traders are running less defensive than usual heading into the print, even as short sellers add. The stock closed at $81.95 on Wednesday, down about 1% on the week and modestly below the $83.03 level cited in last week's note, with the one-month gain at 2.7%.

The analyst community has been trimming targets in the run-up without abandoning positive ratings. JP Morgan lowered its target to $118 from $123 on October 20 while holding Overweight. Susquehanna cut to $115 from $124 on October 21, maintaining Positive. Most of the Street remains constructive, with the consensus mean target at $125.75 against a current price of $81.95, implying substantial upside if the company can close the gap. Bulls point to the 25% year-on-year EBITDA growth in the Live and Historical Racing segment, driven by Kentucky and Virginia HRM venues, and the forward earnings yield ranking in the 78th percentile. Bears focus on flat Gaming segment EBITDA and weak price momentum, with the stock still deeply below levels from earlier in the year. The forward EPS growth score ranks in the 98th percentile, but the 30-day EPS momentum sits only in the 20th, reflecting a recent cooling in estimate revisions.

Wikipedia traffic for CHDN has been running elevated relative to its own 90-day history, with a z-score of 1.95 as of October 19, a sign of heightened retail attention in the weeks ahead of the release. The only prior quarterly data point with a recorded price reaction shows the stock fell 4.8% on the day after the July 2026 print and an additional step lower over the following five days. Today's release will test whether the HRM segment can sustain its growth trajectory at a pace that justifies the gap between the current price and where analysts believe the stock should trade.