CNH Industrial Call-Side Surge Dominates Into Thursday's Print

CNH Industrial heads into its November 6 earnings release with options traders making an unusually aggressive call-side bet, even as short sellers have been walking away from the trade over the past month.

The options market is the sharpest signal in the setup. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.15, more than four standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.29. That is close to the lowest reading of the past year, with the 52-week floor at 0.07. Demand for calls has swamped demand for puts by a ratio that stands well outside any recent precedent. The shift arrived abruptly: the PCR was running at a stable 0.30 through all of October before dropping sharply in the November 2 session. The borrow market reinforces the picture. Availability has loosened dramatically, rising to 1,045% of outstanding short interest, meaning the lending pool has roughly ten shares available for every one currently borrowed. That is the loosest availability CNH has seen in at least a year, and it reflects a lending market with no real squeeze pressure.

Short interest itself has been in steady retreat. Shorts covered roughly 13% of their position over the past week and nearly 18% over the past month, bringing the short interest to around 3.4% of the free float. The pace of that covering is notable: this week's reduction runs about 1.6 standard deviations below the company's typical weekly change, meaning the exits have been unusually large relative to normal. Cost to borrow has drifted down in parallel, now at 0.47%, with no sign of friction in the lending market for those still short.

The analyst community has been generally constructive, with Barclays raising its target to $14 and Truist Securities moving to $17, both in October. JP Morgan maintained an Underweight but lifted its own target to $11, still the most bearish post on the board. The mean target across the Street sits around $14.25, implying roughly 20% above the current price of $11.81. Bulls point to a revenue base that ran materially ahead of expectations in the most recent quarter, 2026 EPS guidance held at $0.35 to $0.45, and the structural scale of CNH's agricultural and construction franchises. Bears focus on a demand base that is 82% tied to agricultural machinery, leaving results exposed to commodity cycles and weather, while a recent CEO and CFO change adds a layer of execution uncertainty. The stock is down 12% over the past month, though it has recovered 5% over the past week, broadly in line with close peers: AGCO gained 8.8% on the week and DE added 4.1%.

The most recent quarterly print, reported in August, produced a one-day gain of nearly 9.5%, though the five-day follow-through faded to just over 2%. The November 6 release will test whether the aggressive call-side positioning of the past session is backed by earnings that justify the gap between the current price and where much of the Street has set its targets.