Fox Short Interest Climbs to a One-Year High Before Earnings

Short sellers have built their largest position in FOXA in at least a year, with 24.2% of the free float now sold short. That figure has risen roughly 10% over the past month, driven by a step-change in borrowed shares that began in early October, when short interest jumped from around 45 million to above 50 million shares in the space of two weeks.

The stock has not been immune to the pressure. FOXA fell 5% over the past week to close at $63.24, a steeper drop than the median decline of 2.6% seen across its closest peers. Sibling company NWSA fell a comparable 5.3% over the same stretch, but broadcast peers SBGI and NXST both gained ground, making Fox's underperformance harder to attribute purely to sector rotation.

Despite the elevated short position, the borrow market itself shows no signs of stress. Availability has eased slightly, dropping about 11% week on week to 178.9%, meaning there are still nearly two shares available to lend for every one already borrowed. Cost to borrow has drifted lower as well, down 9% over the week to 0.50% annualised. That combination, high short interest with loose borrow conditions, suggests the position has been built without a squeeze dynamic and can be maintained cheaply.

Options positioning reinforces the move toward equities rather than hedges. The put/call ratio fell sharply to 0.52 on the final trading day before the print, nearly four standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.60. That is close to the lowest defensive reading of the past year and runs in the opposite direction from the short interest signal: traders in the options market have been adding calls, not buying protection. The divergence between the two markets is the sharpest feature of FOXA's pre-earnings setup.

Analysts have moved decisively in one direction. Bank of America upgraded the stock to Buy on October 16, raising its target from $54 to $85, a significant swing from a prior Underperform rating. JPMorgan and Wells Fargo both upgraded and lifted targets following the August earnings print. The consensus mean target now sits at $79.63, roughly 26% above the current price. The debate centres on whether Fox's dependence on live sports and news can offset accelerating cord-cutting, with rising NFL rights costs and the Roku acquisition adding two large variables to the cost and revenue outlook simultaneously.

ORTEX forecasts that the agreed takeover of Roku will lift Fox's share count across several indices, putting an 84% probability on inclusion events for the Russell 1000 and Russell 3000 and a 65% probability for the MSCI World, all with estimated effective dates around March 2027. These are forecasts, not announcements, and the dates have not been confirmed by the index providers. If they materialise, ORTEX estimates roughly $521 million of tracker buying in the MSCI World alone.

The earnings report therefore tests whether Fox's advertising and affiliate revenue trends, driven by the NFL season and Fox News ratings, are strong enough to justify an analyst consensus that has moved well above the current price even as short sellers have spent October moving in the opposite direction.