DPZ heads into its April 29 Q1 print at a 52-week low for investor confidence, with the stock down nearly 9% on the week and short sellers doubling their exposure over the past month.
The most striking feature of the setup is how aggressively short interest has been rebuilt over the past six weeks. SI % of free float stands at 9.4% — up 28% over the past month — driven by a sustained build from mid-March through mid-April that brought estimated short shares from roughly 2.4 million to 3.6 million. That build paused sharply on April 24, dropping 10% in a single session, suggesting some shorts covered into the selloff. Utilization has climbed back close to its 52-week high of 22.3%, confirming the lending market is under genuine pressure even if borrow costs remain modest at 0.50%. Options positioning, however, has moved in the other direction: the put/call ratio eased to 1.36, well below its 20-day mean of 1.63 and near its lowest reading of the past year. That divergence is notable — shorts were adding while options traders were reducing defensive hedges into the print.
The analyst community has spent the past two weeks trimming targets without cutting ratings, a stance that captures the debate cleanly. JP Morgan lowered its target to $440 while holding Overweight; Morgan Stanley shaved to $430 at Equal-Weight. Across the board, price targets have compressed from the $450–$540 range into a tighter $400–$480 band, with the consensus mean at $432 — still 29% above the current $335.30 close. Bulls lean on Domino's franchise model and vertically integrated supply chain, which insulate margins better than peers, and on an EV/EBITDA multiple of roughly 15x that leaves some room on the valuation side. Bears point to slowing US same-store sales, rising competition, and macro pressure on the consumer that could weigh on carryout frequency. With the stock now trailing the broader restaurant group — fell 3.9% on the week while actually gained 3.3% — DPZ looks like the specific negative read here rather than a sector-wide move.
One ownership data point worth flagging: Berkshire Hathaway remains a top-two holder at just under 10% of shares, with a last-reported increase of 368,000 shares at year-end 2025. That's a meaningful long-term anchor that hasn't been tested by the recent selldown. On the insider side, a cluster of executives — including the CEO and CFO — sold modest positions in mid-March, before the bulk of the decline, all at low significance scores.
The April 29 report will therefore test whether the sharp stock decline already reflects the deceleration in US same-store sales, or whether the Q1 numbers reveal something worse about the consumer demand picture that the Street's still-constructive consensus has yet to price in.
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