Rocket Companies heads into its May 7 Q1 report with short sellers having aggressively rebuilt positions over the past month — and options traders now showing the most defensive tilt of the recent cycle.
Short interest has nearly doubled in a single month. At 7.4% of the free float, short interest is up 50% over the past 30 days — the sharpest build in the data set. The weekly acceleration has continued: shorts added another 5% in the most recent week alone. Despite this, the borrow market remains loose. Cost to borrow is just 0.44%, and availability is ample. That points to a deliberate, well-funded short thesis — not a crowded squeeze candidate — as new positions were easy to establish without driving up borrowing costs.
Options positioning has also tilted more defensive into the print. The put/call ratio hit 0.31 on May 1, more than two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.29 — its highest z-score (2.37) in the recent period and a clear uptick from a cycle where calls have dominated. That said, absolute PCR levels remain well below 1.0, so options traders are incrementally more cautious, not panicking.
The analyst community is split. Barclays upgraded the stock to Overweight earlier in April even as it trimmed its target. Stephens & Co. initiated with Overweight at $22.50 last week. But JP Morgan cut its target from $24 to $16.50 in early April, and Wells Fargo trimmed its own target to $17, both maintaining neutral-to-sidelined ratings. The mean price target of $20.73 implies about 42% upside from the current $14.64. The bull case centres on the pending Mr. Cooper acquisition, with merger synergies pegged above $500 million through 2027. Bears point to sustained elevated mortgage rates suppressing origination volumes and a housing market that has yet to turn. Earnings per share revisions have been sliding: the EPS momentum factor ranks in just the 10th percentile over 30 days.
The insider picture adds another shade of caution. In April, six C-suite officers — including the CTO and COO — sold shares at $15.03 on the same day. The CEO sold nearly $871,000 of stock in March. Net insider sales over 90 days total roughly $29 million. Past earnings reactions have been mixed at best: the February 2026 print produced a 5% initial gain that eroded into a 10% five-day loss, while the prior quarter saw the stock fall more than 15% over five days. Thursday's print will test whether the Mr. Cooper deal narrative can overcome a mortgage market still waiting for rate relief.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open RKT 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.
