New Jersey Resources heads into its May 5 fiscal Q2 print with an unusually clean setup — short sellers are retreating, borrow is cheap, and options traders are leaning further into the bull camp than at almost any point in the past year.
The options signal is the clearest expression of that tilt. The put/call ratio has eased to 0.14, fractionally below its already low 20-day mean of 0.14, putting it nearly two standard deviations below that average. That's close to the most call-heavy positioning seen over the past 52 weeks, against a high of 0.88. The message is straightforward: options participants are not buying protection into this print. They are positioned for continuation.
Short interest reinforces that picture rather than contradicting it. Bears have been trimming exposure for weeks — SI fell nearly 10% over the past week to 2.1% of the free float, with the retreat most visible after April 23, when positions dropped sharply from around 2.3 million shares to roughly 2.1 million and held there. Borrow costs run at 0.53%, effectively unchanged for months, with very high availability pointing to no meaningful squeeze pressure in the lending market. This is not a heavily contested stock.
The analyst community has moved in the same direction. Mizuho's Gabriel Moreen raised his target from $54 to $61 on April 21, while maintaining an Outperform rating — the most recent action and the most consequential, given the $7 jump. That lift was itself a follow-up to a December upgrade from Neutral. The consensus mean target now rests at $59.33, roughly 6% above the current price of $56.10. The bulls' case centres on earnings growth, a coming P/E re-rating, and a positive load-growth profile that tracks well against utility peers. Bears focus on renewal-pricing risk — the possibility that regional demand softens or new competition from pipelines and storage erodes revenue expectations. The stock's factor scores offer more support to the bull side: EPS surprise ranks in the 83rd percentile, forward EPS growth momentum ranks in the 72nd, and the dividend score is an exceptional 98th.
One institutional holder stands out heading into the print. Energy Income Partners built its position by nearly 900,000 shares as of April 30 — a notable conviction move for a dedicated energy income manager. BlackRock remains the dominant holder at 17.7% of shares, with Vanguard at 10.8%. Both added modestly in Q1. From the prior comparable earnings event in February, the stock rose approximately 3.6% on the day and nearly 5% over the following week — a reaction consistent with a well-received print rather than a relief rally from low expectations.
The May 5 report will therefore test whether NJR's earnings trajectory and load-growth narrative can justify both the Mizuho upgrade and a valuation that, at 16.5x trailing earnings with EV/EBITDA near 12.2x, already prices in execution.
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