SNAP heads into its May 6 Q1 results in an unusual position: the stock has surged 37% in a month, yet short sellers remain meaningfully present — and the history of this print is punishing.
Short interest has been unambiguously retreating in response to that price move. At nearly 10% of the free float as of April 30, the short position is still substantial — but it peaked above 11.7% on April 17 and has fallen 16% over the past week alone as shorts covered into the rally. Borrow costs are modest at 0.43%, reflecting easy conditions in the lending market, with availability well above tightly constrained territory. The ORTEX short score has followed the same path, easing from 61 to 55 over the past two weeks as the squeeze dynamics have partially unwound. Options positioning remains decisively call-heavy: the put/call ratio of 0.24 sits near its 52-week low of 0.22, indicating that options traders have been betting on more upside rather than hedging against a reversal.
The debate heading into the print centres on whether Snap's advertising recovery has legs — or whether the rally has run ahead of the fundamentals. Analyst opinion is split but leans cautious: the consensus rating is hold, with 29 analysts on the fence and only 8 with a buy. Most targets cluster in the $6–$7 range, with the stock now at $6.29 — already pushing against the Guggenheim and Rosenblatt neutral targets of $6.50 and $6.40 respectively. BMO Capital remains the notable bull, carrying a $15 target. The main bear concern is North America user growth, the failed Perplexity deal, and a lack of clarity on future investment direction. Bulls point to steady revenue trends and improving forward EPS momentum, which ranks in the 87th percentile across the universe — a signal the Street has been revising up its earnings expectations. EPS momentum over the past 30 days is even stronger, at the 94th percentile.
Insider activity adds a cautious undertone. CEO Evan Spiegel sold 1 million shares at $5.04 on April 8, a $5 million transaction, with the CFO and other senior officers also selling smaller amounts in recent months. Net insider activity over 90 days is a positive 3.6 million shares, but that is skewed by equity awards rather than open-market purchases — the actual cash transactions have been one-directional.
Snap's earnings history sets a high bar for the bulls. The last two prints produced first-day declines of 16% and 11% respectively, with five-day losses of 18% and 21%. The one exception in the recent history was a 7% gain in November 2025, followed by a 22% five-day rally. That pattern — sharp moves in either direction — is what the May 6 print will test: whether Snap's advertising momentum and user trends can justify a price that has already priced in considerable optimism.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open SNAP on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
