OrthoPediatrics Corp. reports Q1 2026 results on May 4 with the stock trading near multi-year lows — down 17.6% year-to-date — and a lending market that signals bears are pulling back, not pressing in.
Short sellers have grown less aggressive heading into the print. SI % FF has eased to 3.6%, down roughly 4% over both the past week and the past month, and the ORTEX short score has slipped from 51.6 to 46.7 over just ten sessions — a clear directional retreat. Borrow conditions are equally relaxed: cost to borrow is a negligible 0.68%, and with utilization running at just 8.4% against a 52-week peak of 21.8%, availability in the lending pool is wide open. There is no meaningful squeeze pressure here, and no sign that short sellers are building a conviction trade ahead of earnings.
Options positioning reinforces the less cautious tone. The put/call ratio of 0.64 is nearly a full standard deviation below its 20-day average of 2.20, implying investors have rotated decisively away from downside protection. That shift is striking given how elevated PCR had been through March and early April — readings above 3.5 persisted for weeks before the mid-April reset. The unwinding of that hedging overhang has coincided with the stock's slight one-day bounce of 2.9% to $15.06, though the stock still gave back 7.1% on the week.
The debate heading into the print centres on whether the deceleration seen in Q3 2025 — revenue growth slowing from 15.7% to 12.2% — marks a temporary air pocket or something more structural. Bears point to sales rep attrition, a drop in deployed sets from $5.3 million to $4.1 million year-on-year, and a downward revision in FY25 guidance as evidence that the growth engine is stalling. Bulls counter with a 50-basis-point gross margin improvement, an 280-basis-point EBITDA margin expansion, and Trauma & Deformity sales growing 17.3% — outperforming estimates — while flagging OPSB category growth above 20% in Q3 2025 as the next catalyst. Analyst targets raised in late February by Needham and BTIG (to $30 and $24 respectively) cluster around a consensus mean of $25, implying roughly 66% upside to the current price. The RSI of 32.7 places the stock in technically oversold territory. Truist held a more cautious Hold at $20 — a sign the Street is not uniformly bullish even at these levels.
One institutional dynamic stands out: Millennium Management entered as a near-5.4% shareholder with a position built almost entirely in Q4 2025, while Soleus Capital added roughly 397,000 shares in the same period. Both are active managers with event-driven orientations. Their accumulation near current price levels adds a floor narrative that passive flows alone cannot explain.
The May 4 print will test whether the Q3 deceleration was noise or trend — and whether management's 12%+ revenue growth forecast for the coming years still holds after a quarter that markets have clearly been discounting.
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