Clarivate Plc heads into its April 29 Q1 earnings with short sellers quietly trimming exposure and options traders displaying little sign of alarm.
The short-side story has turned modestly less bearish in recent weeks. Short Interest as a % of Free Float has eased to 8.3%, down nearly 4% over the past month, with the most recent daily reading showing another 1.8% single-session decline. Utilization, which hit a 52-week high of 84.5% earlier this year, has dropped sharply to 58.7% — well off peak levels — suggesting the borrow market has loosened. Cost to borrow has also collapsed, falling roughly 34% over the past week to just 0.48%. ORTEX's short score remains elevated at 73.9 out of 100, keeping CLVT in the 3rd percentile of its universe for short positioning — but the direction of travel is clearly toward de-risking. That said, with the stock trading at just $2.46 and down 10% on the week, short sellers have had little incentive to press harder.
Options positioning reinforces the low-fear tone. The put/call ratio at 0.055 is fractionally below its 20-day average of 0.059 — nearly a standard deviation to the bullish side. There is no rush for downside protection, even with the print tomorrow. That contrasts with the stock's own recent performance: the 10% weekly decline cuts against the calm options market, pointing to a setup where price action and derivatives are not fully aligned.
The analyst backdrop offers little comfort to bulls. Following the Q4 report in late February — which triggered a stunning 37% single-day rally and a nearly 47% five-day gain — multiple firms cut targets while holding cautious ratings. Citigroup trimmed to $2.80 and Goldman Sachs, which had already downgraded to Neutral in January, held its $3.60 target. The consensus mean of $3.61 implies meaningful upside from the current $2.46 price, but the direction of recent analyst moves has been uniformly downward. EV/EBITDA trades around 5.7x — undemanding in isolation — but EPS surprise ranks in only the 14th percentile, meaning the company has a history of disappointing relative to estimates. The 90-day EPS momentum score of 83 is the one constructive factor number in an otherwise cautious picture.
Ownership is concentrated and largely inactive. Leonard Green & Partners holds 18.2% of shares, Lingotto Investment Management 10.5%, and Clarkston Capital Partners 10.1% — with no reported changes from any of the top three. More notable is Impactive Capital's reduction of 13.4 million shares as of early February, unwinding a position that had been one of the more activist-oriented holdings on the register. Insider activity has been uniformly one-directional: the CEO, CFO, CIO, and multiple directors all sold in March, though the values involved were small enough to carry low significance scores.
The print therefore tests whether the February earnings euphoria — which briefly appeared to reset the narrative — has any follow-through, or whether the steady analyst target compression and insider distribution reflect a more durable reset lower.
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