Short sellers have been quietly accumulating pressure in HSY ahead of Tuesday's Q1 print, and the stock's 12% decline over the past month has done nothing to deter them.
Short interest has jumped nearly 37% in a month, rising from roughly 4.8% of the free float in late March to 6.6% now — the highest level in this data window. The move accelerated through the back half of April: from April 9, short interest climbed from just under 5% to 6.6% in three weeks. Borrowing costs remain negligible at 0.47%, and borrow availability is ample, meaning new shorts face no friction in adding to positions. The ORTEX short score of 46 is a middling reading, but its direction — steadily climbing all month — tells the more relevant story.
Analyst activity on Friday tells a divided story heading into the earnings event. TD Cowen's Robert Moskow upgraded the stock to Buy with a $210 target, breaking with the rest of the Street, which spent the day cutting. JPMorgan trimmed its target to $204 (from $211), UBS lowered to $200 (from $215), and Wells Fargo cut to $200 from $220 — all while holding neutral-equivalent ratings. Morgan Stanley, with an Overweight rating, trimmed its target to $227 earlier in the month. The consensus mean lands at $217, roughly 19% above the current price of $182.34. That gap reflects the drop the stock has already endured rather than fresh conviction. Bulls point to international expansion and an anticipated easing in cocoa prices as the path back; bears flag commodity volatility, intensifying competition in packaged foods, and structural demand headwinds including GLP-1 adoption and SNAP policy changes.
Options positioning adds an interesting twist. The put/call ratio has actually eased from its defensive highs — it ran above 0.95 in early April before retreating to 0.76, slightly below its 20-day average of 0.81. That means options traders have become less defensive over the past month, even as the stock has continued to slide. The contrast with rising short interest is notable: shares are being shorted at an accelerating pace, but options buyers have rotated back toward calls. Among peers, MDLZ gained 6.5% on the week while KHC added 3.1% — moves that make Hershey's 4.8% weekly decline look more company-specific than sector-wide.
The Milton Hershey School Trust, HSY's dominant 27.8% shareholder, filed a series of small sales on April 27–29, totalling roughly $1.9 million across multiple tranches. The transactions carry a low significance score and are well within the Trust's normal portfolio management patterns, but they arrive at a price point nearly 20% below the average analyst target — a timing detail that markets will notice regardless.
The May 5 print is therefore a test of whether Hershey can frame a credible recovery path on cocoa costs and volume while addressing the structural demand questions that have kept the majority of the Street on the sidelines.
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