Ryman Hospitality Reports Today With Short Interest on the Rise

Ryman Hospitality Properties reports third-quarter results today against a backdrop of rising short interest and a recent analyst downgrade, even as the stock trades near its highest levels of the year.

Short positions have grown roughly 8% over the past week, bringing short interest to about 4.9% of the free float. That is a meaningful acceleration after a longer period of gradual decline through October. The cost to borrow has also ticked up, climbing more than 50% week-on-week to 0.40%, though in absolute terms it remains low. Borrow availability is exceptionally loose at around 1,346% of current short interest, meaning there is no shortage of supply for new shorts. The options market tells a similar story of elevated put activity, with the put/call ratio at 5.36, essentially in line with its 20-day average of 5.34. That structural skew toward puts reflects the REIT's dividend profile and hedging patterns rather than a fresh surge in bearish conviction.

The analyst picture going into the print is slightly more mixed than the broad buy consensus suggests. JP Morgan raised its target to $138 from $129 on October 21, keeping an Overweight rating. One week later, Evercore ISI downgraded the stock to In-Line from Outperform while leaving its $140 target unchanged, a clear signal that at least one bellwether firm views the current price as fair value rather than an opportunity. Barclays trimmed its target to $143 from $147 in mid-October while staying Overweight. The stock at $134.90 trades just below the consensus mean target of $140.43, leaving only modest implied upside from here. The forward earnings multiple has expanded about 2.6 points over the past month, meaning the stock has re-rated higher even before tonight's numbers justify it.

Institutional ownership is concentrated. BlackRock holds roughly 16.4% of shares and added nearly 391,000 shares in the most recent reported quarter. T. Rowe Price added 644,000 shares in the same period, a notable increase relative to its position size. Wikipedia page views for the company have spiked to 2.6 standard deviations above their 90-day average as of late October, a reading that reflects elevated retail attention ahead of the report.

The closest peers had a stronger week. XHR gained 5.8% and RLJ rose 4.3%, both outpacing RHP's 2.0% weekly gain. That mild underperformance relative to the lodging REIT peer group puts more weight on today's print to justify RHP's premium valuation, specifically whether group travel demand and convention bookings are holding up at a pace consistent with the multiple expansion seen over the past month.