Short sellers are moving into HUBS at pace, making the borrow story the sharpest signal ahead of Wednesday's Q1 release.
Short interest has climbed 38% over the past month to 6.9% of the free float — a meaningful position by any measure — and jumped 23% in just the past week. That rate of accumulation stands out. The ORTEX short score has moved in lockstep, rising from around 37 in late April to 40.9 now, its highest level in the recent window. Borrow conditions remain loose, with cost to borrow running at just 0.31% and borrow availability well above stress levels, suggesting the new shorts entered without friction.
Options traders are reading the setup differently. The put/call ratio of 0.70 is actually slightly above its 20-day mean of 0.66 but still well below mid-range for the past year — a range that has swung between 0.48 and 1.10. Call-skewed positioning, combined with an 8% single-day price jump on May 1 to $239.89, points to a section of the market leaning optimistic into the print. HUBS is up 7.4% on the week, even as it remains roughly flat over the past month — a recovery that arrived quickly and has the stock sitting about 30% below the consensus mean target of $344.71, which gives bulls meaningful room.
The bull and bear debate centres on AI. Optimists point to HubSpot's expanding AI-native features — including Smart Deal Progression and Customer Agent — and ongoing momentum in partner adoption. Sceptics flag that those same AI features are credit-consumption heavy, raising questions about unit economics as the company scales outcome-based pricing. Analysts broadly retain Buy-equivalent ratings but have trimmed targets across the board in April; Citigroup cut its target from $368 to $321 in the days before the print, while Canaccord moved from $485 to $350 in mid-April. EPS momentum ranks in the 75th percentile over 90 days, which supports the bull case on fundamentals, but EPS surprise history ranks only in the 30th percentile — a reminder that HUBS does not always clear the bar it sets.
Insiders have been consistent sellers in recent months. The Executive Chairman, CEO, CFO, and CTO all sold shares in early April, and the Executive Chairman added a larger $1.9M sale on April 21. Net insider activity over 90 days totals roughly $8.8M in sales. These are predominantly plan-based transactions and the significance scores are low, but the consistent direction is worth noting as context. Meanwhile, two of the closest earnings-reaction peers offer a mixed backdrop: TEAM surged 30% on its day-one reaction this week while CRM added a more modest 4%, suggesting the sector can reward strong prints generously but the dispersion is wide.
The Q1 report is therefore less about whether HubSpot is growing and more about whether AI-driven product changes are translating into durable revenue expansion — and whether the margin profile can satisfy a market that has just re-priced the stock sharply higher in a single session.
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