Sunoco LP heads into its May 5 Q1 earnings report with the analyst community firmly behind it — and the options market unusually skewed toward calls.
The bullish analyst tone is the standout. RBC Capital raised its target from $64 to $76 just this week, maintaining Outperform. Mizuho followed days earlier, lifting its target from $66 to $75 on the same rating. That momentum extends further back: JP Morgan raised to $73 in March; Wells Fargo lifted to $71 the same month. Every recent analyst move has been a target raise. No cuts, no downgrades. The consensus target now clusters around $70, close to where the stock trades at $68.35 — but the most recent actions from RBC and Mizuho point well above.
Options positioning reinforces that constructive lean. The put/call ratio has fallen to 0.43, its lowest reading in the past 52 weeks and nearly 1.5 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.50. That level points to call dominance — investors using the options market are leaning toward upside, not hedging for a drop. The stock itself has added roughly 5% over the past month, with a 3.7% week-on-week bounce recovering a modest pullback from Friday's 1.9% dip.
Short interest is not part of the story here. At just under 2% of the float, it has quietly retreated around 8% over the past month. Cost to borrow has halved since late March, now running below 3.3%, well off its peak of 5.6% in mid-March. Borrow availability has eased considerably too, with the lending pool far less stressed than earlier in the quarter when it briefly hit full constraint. None of this signals meaningful short conviction into the print.
The strongest supporting signal may be the dividend score — ranking in the 89th percentile of the ORTEX universe — which reflects the LP's appeal as a yield vehicle. Past earnings reactions have been modest in both directions: the February print sparked a 3.2% one-day gain, while the prior two releases barely moved the stock on day one. The Q1 report is therefore less a test of the bull thesis than a checkpoint on whether Sunoco can sustain the distribution profile that has driven multiple analysts to lift their targets through the spring.
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