Huntsman Corporation enters its Q1 2026 earnings call on May 1 with the most defensive options positioning seen in months, even as short sellers have quietly pulled back.
The clearest signal is in the options market. The put/call ratio spiked to 1.43 on April 30 — nearly four standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.95. That is the most extreme defensive reading in close to a year, comfortably above the 52-week high of 1.91 on a z-score basis. Investors are paying materially more for downside protection on this print than at any recent point. The move is all the more notable because the stock has rallied hard into the event — up 8.5% on Wednesday alone, 6% on the week, and 14% over the past month to close at $14.37. A sharp rally followed by a surge in put buying is not a neutral combination.
Short interest tells a contrasting story. Bears have actually reduced exposure through April, with estimated short interest falling roughly 10% over the month to 12.7% of the free float — still a meaningful level for a diversified chemicals company, but the direction is clearly one of retreat. The borrow market is loose: cost to borrow runs at just 0.41% annualised, and availability is wide, meaning new shorts face no meaningful friction. There is no squeeze pressure building in the lending pool.
The bull case rests on operating leverage and mix. Roughly 75% of Huntsman's MDI business is differentiated and relatively inelastic to pricing pressure, which gives the company a credible path to margin recovery as construction and automotive end-markets improve. EPS surprise has been strong — ranking in the 85th percentile — and the forward earnings trajectory is pointing upward, with 12-month forward EPS growth ranking in the 66th percentile. The bear case is harder to dismiss, however. EBITDA estimates have been cut repeatedly, now sitting at roughly $270 million for full-year 2025 and $345 million for 2026. Oversupply in global MDI markets and Asian product displacement in South America remain structural headwinds, not one-quarter problems. Most of the Street sits on the fence: targets were broadly raised in February after Q4 results, with UBS, Citi and RBC all lifting to around $14, but none upgraded their ratings. JP Morgan actually stepped back to Neutral at that point, trimming one layer of optimism. The mean price target of $12.77 now sits below the current price, which says the consensus had already modelled less upside than the market has delivered.
Peers broadly rallied alongside HUN on Wednesday. EMN gained 3.8%, OLN rose 4%, WLK added 3.5%, and DOW moved up 2.4%. The group move reduces the idiosyncratic read from HUN's own session gain — it was a chemicals sector bid, not a Huntsman-specific one. The two most recent earnings reactions for HUN produced a 5.2% one-day gain last quarter and a 6.1% one-day loss the prior period, followed by a 10.7% five-day decline. Both prints proved volatile.
The Q1 report is therefore less a test of whether Huntsman can grow and more a question of whether the rally from decade-lows into consensus price targets can find new fundamental justification — or whether the put buyers loading up ahead of the call have the better read.
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