Moelis Shorts Covered, Street Still Cautious Before Thursday Print

Moelis & Company arrives at its November 5 earnings release with short sellers having retreated materially over the past two weeks, while analysts spent October trimming targets across the board.

Short interest peaked above 8% of the free float in mid-October and has since fallen to 6.9%, a 14% decline on the week. The ORTEX short score has tracked the unwind, dropping from 52.8 on October 16 to 48.9 on October 29, now a fraction below the neutral midpoint. The borrow market adds no pressure to the picture: availability runs at roughly 1,086%, meaning more than ten shares sit ready to lend for every one currently borrowed. Borrow costs are negligible at 0.45%. The stock itself gained 7.4% on the week to close at $58.59 on Friday, modestly outpacing peers: EVR added 15.3%, PJT 6.2%, while LAZ gained 3.1%. Options positioning is mildly more defensive than usual, with the put/call ratio at 0.56 against a 20-day average of 0.47, though the z-score of 0.77 is well within normal range.

The analyst picture has been uniformly cautious on price but not on conviction. JP Morgan trimmed its target to $68 from $70 last week while holding Neutral, and Goldman Sachs cut to $62 from $71 earlier in October. Morgan Stanley lowered to $77 from $85 but kept its Overweight rating. The mean target across the Street sits at $67.30, roughly 15% above the last close, and no major firm has abandoned a positive or neutral stance. The bull case rests on the record pipeline management flagged at the most recent quarterly release, with revenue composition running about two-thirds M&A and one-third restructuring and capital markets. Bears point to sponsor backlog softness and the risk that postponed transactions slip further if conditions deteriorate.

Thursday's print will test whether the revenue pipeline management described as a record has begun converting into closed fees, or whether macro softness is extending deal timelines into 2027.