AbbVie Reports Today With Shorts at a Year Low

ABBV goes into its Q3 earnings release today carrying the lightest short position in at least a year, a product of a six-week unwind that has cut the bet against the stock nearly in half.

Short sellers held more than 20 million shares in mid-September. By October 28 that had fallen to 15.5 million shares, 0.87% of the free float, a 22% reduction over the past month. The retreat has been steady rather than dramatic, with no single-session capitulation, just a persistent drawdown as the bear case lost adherents through October. Borrow conditions confirm there is no pressure on the remaining shorts: availability is effectively unlimited, with shares available to lend running at multiples of current short interest, and cost to borrow, while it has tripled over the past month, remains negligible at 0.51%.

Options positioning is calm rather than defensive. The put/call ratio of 0.89 is barely above its 20-day average of 0.88, a z-score of just 0.20. That puts it well within normal range and far below the 52-week high of 1.13 seen earlier this year. The stock itself has added 1.7% in the past session and 2.0% over the past week, closing at $290.79, a 9.2% gain over the past month. Closest peers VRTX and AMGN rose 0.9% and 3.0% respectively over the past week, leaving ABBV roughly in line with the group.

The analyst community has been raising targets through October, and the direction of travel is consistent with the short unwind. Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Barclays, and Goldman Sachs all lifted price targets in the weeks before today's release, with Barclays the most aggressive at $325. Goldman Sachs, maintaining a Neutral, raised to $294, broadly in line with current trading levels. The consensus mean target of $283.19 now sits fractionally below the stock price, meaning the stock has moved through the average target. Bulls point to Skyrizi and Rinvoq as durable growth engines that continue to absorb Humira's decline, with no meaningful patent expiries this decade and capacity for further acquisitions. The bear case centres on slowing base business growth, margin pressure, and the risk that the P/E multiple contracts if those growth assumptions are not met. The FDA approval of subcutaneous Skyrizi induction for Crohn's disease on October 26 widened the commercial ceiling in one of the company's two most important franchises, a fact already in the market ahead of today's numbers.

The print will therefore test whether Skyrizi and Rinvoq volume growth is running fast enough to satisfy a market that has already priced in a strong outcome, and whether management's guidance for the remainder of the year leaves room for the multiple to hold at current levels.