Delek US Holdings heads into its April 29 Q1 print with a split signal: options traders are the most defensively positioned in a year, even as short sellers have quietly stepped back from the stock.
The options market is the loudest warning light. The put/call ratio has hit 0.62 — its highest reading of the past 52 weeks — and runs more than 1.5 standard deviations above the 20-day average of 0.39. That's a sharp reversal from March, when the ratio sat in the low 0.20s. The shift reflects a meaningful pickup in demand for downside protection right into the earnings window. At the same time, the stock has recovered 6.4% on the week to $40.45 after a bruising month that erased nearly 15% of its value.
Short interest, however, tells a less alarmed story. Shorts control roughly 14.6% of the free float — meaningful, but the position has barely moved over the past month, down just 0.8%. Borrow costs are close to free at 0.44%, and utilization has collapsed to just 2.2% against a 52-week high of 30.1%. That gap is striking: the lending market is extraordinarily loose, suggesting bears holding existing positions are not being squeezed, and new shorts face almost no friction entering.
The analyst community is divided, and the divergence is notable heading into the print. Goldman Sachs carries a Buy with a $55 target — the most bullish major-bank stance — reflecting confidence in Delek's refining margin recovery. On the same day last week, TD Cowen slashed its target from $60 to $44 while keeping a Hold, a signal that at least one firm sees the near-term risk-reward as stretched even after the stock's pullback. Morgan Stanley nudged its target marginally higher to $40 — essentially pinning fair value at the current price — while Citigroup moved from $33 to $44 without changing its Neutral stance. The consensus mean of $48.15 implies about 19% upside from current levels, but the spread between bulls and neutrals is unusually wide for a single-sector refiner. The EV/EBITDA of 5.7x has compressed sharply over the past month, down from around 6.9x, pointing to a market that has already repriced some of the macro headwinds into the stock.
Insider activity adds a cautionary note. Chairman Ezra Yemin sold over $2.4 million of stock in mid-March at prices between $43.73 and $44.20 — well above today's close — while a director and an EVP also trimmed positions around the same time. The sales came near the cycle peak and before the 15% drawdown, leaving the 90-day net insider position modestly positive only because of non-cash awards to the CFO.
The Q1 print is therefore less a test of whether Delek can grow throughput and more a question of whether its crack spread assumptions hold at a macro moment when refining margins remain volatile — and whether the company's balance sheet progress can justify targets that are running 19% above where the stock trades today.
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