Camden Property Trust Short Sellers Step Up Before Q3 Results

Camden Property Trust is heading into its November 5 results with short sellers meaningfully more active than a month ago, even as the options market pulls back from its recent extremes.

Short interest has climbed nearly 17% over the past month to 4.9% of the free float, with the sharpest leg coming in the week of October 23, when shares on loan jumped roughly 9.5%. At about 5.26 million shares short, that is the highest short position in the period ORTEX tracks, though the borrow market itself shows no sign of stress. Availability is exceptionally loose, with roughly 94.7 million shares still available to lend. Cost to borrow remains low at 0.52%, up about 5% on the week but still well inside territory that would indicate any squeeze pressure. The lending picture points to a deliberate, unhurried build in bearish positioning rather than a scramble.

Put demand has cooled since the previous ORTEX note before the October 29 print, when the put/call ratio briefly touched 1.77. It has since settled at 1.51, still above the 20-day average of 1.13 but no longer near the 52-week high of 1.97. That partial retreat tracks the share price, which gained around 1.2% after the October 29 earnings event before giving back 1.3% over the past week. CPT's week slightly outperformed the peer group median of roughly minus 2%, with ESS the outlier at minus 5.1% and UDR the steadiest at minus 0.9%.

The analyst community has spent the past six weeks cutting targets, and the direction has not changed. Wells Fargo, Evercore ISI, UBS, Barclays, RBC Capital, and Piper Sandler all reduced their price objectives in October, in most cases while keeping neutral or equivalent ratings. The consensus mean now sits at $111, against a share price of $100.69, which implies about 10% upside on paper. The bull case rests on portfolio metrics and FFO tracking slightly ahead of expectations, an occupancy rate near 95.5% to 95.9%, and the argument that easing new construction and persistently expensive for-sale housing provide a longer-term floor for apartment demand. Bears point to a 2.2% to 2.7% projected decline in normalized FFO for 2026, weak rent spreads, rising expenses, and particular softness in key markets including Washington DC and Houston, where weaker demand and higher interest costs combine to compress returns.

The November 5 print is therefore a test of whether CPT's operating metrics can stabilise near current occupancy levels while management's full-year FFO guidance of $6.05 to $6.19 per share holds, or whether rising financing costs and sluggish rent growth force another round of estimate reductions from a Street that has already spent the autumn lowering the bar.