Regions Financial reports Q1 results on May 6 with short sellers quietly stepping back and options traders growing less defensive — a setup that contrasts with the cautious analyst tone that dominated the spring.
The most notable positioning shift is in short interest. Bears pulled back sharply after April 23, when shorts covered roughly 9% of their position in a single week — dropping SI from around 6.3% of the float to 5.8%. That's a meaningful retreat for a stock where short interest had been building through late March. Borrowing costs reinforce the picture: cost to borrow is running below 0.5%, and has eased roughly 11% over the past week. Borrow availability remains very loose, well above 1,000%, meaning there is no friction for new short sellers to enter — the retreat is a choice, not a squeeze.
Options positioning tells a similar story of easing tension. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.95, now running below its 20-day average of 1.04 — almost a full standard deviation below that mean. As recently as mid-April, the PCR was above 1.12, pointing to heavier demand for downside protection. That hedging pressure has unwound materially over the past two weeks, broadly in line with the stock's 8% recovery from its April trough.
The analyst community is more divided. Post-Q1 prints have tilted constructive at the margin: DA Davidson and RBC Capital both raised price targets in the days following the April 17 Q1 release — RBC lifting to $31, DA Davidson to $32. Against that, JPMorgan trimmed its target to $29 earlier in April and holds at Neutral, while Wells Fargo remains at Underweight with a $28 target. The consensus sits at hold, with a mean target of $30.69 — roughly 9% above the current price of $28.19. Bears point to NII and NIM that came in slightly below expectations in Q1, loan spread compression, and the risk of elevated credit losses at EnerBank, the bank's home improvement lending unit. Bulls counter that tangible book value grew in Q1, deposit trends improved, and the bank's Southeastern footprint supports organic growth. Valuation multiples have re-rated higher over the past month — the P/E has moved up roughly 0.7 turns and the P/B has added 0.1 — though both remain modest in absolute terms at 10.6x and 1.3x respectively.
The May 6 print tests whether the NII trajectory has stabilised enough to justify the stock's recovery — or whether the lingering caution from the Street's hold-heavy consensus reflects a more enduring ceiling on the story.
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