Cencora Clears Earnings with Shorts at a Year Low

COR reported on November 4 and immediately ran 4.7% on the week to $340.50, its strongest weekly move in months, while every short-selling signal in the data points the same direction: bears have been retreating for weeks.

Short interest has now fallen to 2.0% of the free float, its lowest level in at least a year. The month-on-month decline is 7.7%, with roughly 250,000 fewer shares short than in late September when the position stood closer to 4.5 million. Cost to borrow has dropped to 0.32%, down more than a third in a week alone, the lowest reading in the 30-day window. Availability is effectively unconstrained, with nearly 190 million shares available to lend against a short position of under 4 million. There is no tension in the lending market, no sign of a squeeze, no sign of a rebuild. The bears have simply stepped aside.

Options positioning is a sharper story, though it now reads differently than it did before Tuesday's print. The put/call ratio hit 0.58 on November 3, more than three standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.38, the highest defensive skew in that window. That was the pre-earnings hedge. With the report now out and the stock up on the week, the question is whether that protection gets unwound. The 52-week PCR range runs from 0.23 to 0.82, so there is room for the ratio to normalise lower if buyers step in and reduce their put cover. For now, elevated put open interest relative to calls remains the one cautious signal in an otherwise constructive picture.

The Street leaned into the results constructively even before the print. Morgan Stanley raised its target to $377 from $346 on October 30, keeping its Overweight rating, while Argus Research moved to $380 from $340 and Leerink Partners nudged to $388. The mean target across the analyst group sits at $371.67, roughly 9% above the current price. UBS cut its target to $400 from $430 in mid-October but held its Buy, acknowledging near-term valuation without abandoning the thesis. RBC Capital sits at $330 with a Sector Perform, the clearest sceptic in the group. On valuation, the stock trades at 15.8x trailing earnings with EV/EBITDA at 11.7x, both up modestly on the week. The factor score for analyst recommendation differential ranks in the 94th percentile, meaning the gap between current ratings and historical averages is unusually wide in favour of the stock right now.

The ownership picture adds texture. Walgreens Boots Alliance Holdings remains on the 13D register as a disclosed activist, the most recent filing from June 2025 showing a stake that had slipped to 4.96% from 5.4%, just below the reporting threshold. As per SEC disclosure rules, that position is "as last disclosed" and may have changed further without a filing obligation. JP Morgan Asset Management added over 1.2 million shares in the most recent reported quarter. Wellington Management built a position of roughly 1.55 million shares over the same period. BlackRock and T. Rowe Price remain the two largest holders at approximately 9.5% and 7.6% respectively, both essentially steady. The insider register shows only routine activity: the Chief Accounting Officer's sales are on a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan, and the October option exercise and tax withholding by the Chief Data Officer is a compensation mechanism rather than a discretionary signal.

Closest distribution peers MCK and CAH also gained on the week, up 3.4% and 2.6% respectively, suggesting the sector caught a broad bid rather than COR outperforming on a stock-specific catalyst alone. HSIC fell 2.1% on the week, the one clear underperformer among the group.

The number to track from here is how quickly the elevated put/call ratio normalises now that the event risk has passed, and whether short interest, already at a 12-month floor, holds flat or falls further as the stock extends its post-earnings gain.