PPL Corporation reports Q1 2026 results on May 6 with one clear story: short sellers have been cutting positions sharply, even as the broader market has kept the stock under mild pressure.
The most striking move in the data is a near-10% drop in short interest over the past week, pulling SI % of free float down to 5.0%. That unwind follows a notable spike through mid-April, when shares short climbed above 41 million — then collapsed over three sessions after April 23. The borrow market confirms this is not a stressed setup. Cost to borrow has eased nearly 29% over the week to 0.40% annualised, among the cheapest levels in the recent window. Availability remains extremely loose, with only a fraction of the lending pool currently in use — well below the 52-week high utilisation of 20.5%. There is no squeeze dynamic here; shorts are leaving on their own terms.
Options positioning is slightly more cautious, but not alarmingly so. The put/call ratio has climbed to 0.99, above its 20-day average of 0.86, though the z-score of 0.47 puts it less than half a standard deviation from normal. Notably, the PCR was running above 1.20 in late April and has since eased — suggesting that defensive hedging has already partially unwound ahead of the print. PPL's stock is down 3% on the week and 1.6% over the past month to $37.60, lagging several utility peers: XEL gained 4.3% on the week, added 2.4%, and rose 1.7%, while slid 5% to company PPL in underperformance.
The analyst community leans constructive. Morgan Stanley trimmed its target modestly to $43 on April 21 while holding an Overweight rating, and Jefferies lifted its target sharply to $48 from $40 a week earlier — both moves within the past 14 days. Barclays and Evercore also raised targets in the weeks prior. The mean target of $42.13 implies roughly 12% upside from current levels. Bulls point to PPL's regulated utility footprint across Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Rhode Island, where contracted frameworks support predictable cash flow and recent dividend growth near 3%. Bears flag regulatory execution risk, the challenge of keeping capital projects on time and on budget, and potential margin pressure — though at an EV/EBITDA of 10.8x and a P/E of 18.7x, the valuation does not look stretched for a regulated utility. PPL's dividend score ranks in the 88th percentile of the universe, reflecting the income quality that anchors the bull case.
Historical reactions to PPL prints have been muted. After the last two earnings events, the stock gained less than 1% on the day but followed through to 5.4% and 2.3% higher over the following five sessions — suggesting investors have tended to reward the results on a slight delay. The May 6 print will test whether the regulated growth story can justify the stock's underperformance against utility peers, and whether the short-covering of the past week reflects genuine re-rating or simply a position flush ahead of the number.
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