GPOR heads into its Q1 2026 earnings today with a striking divergence: options traders have turned unusually bullish, even as the stock and the broader analyst community navigate headwinds.
The sharpest signal is in options, and it cuts against the cautious grain. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.49 — nearly two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.78. That is one of the most call-skewed readings of the past year, with the PCR sitting close to its 52-week low of 0.29. That kind of positioning reflects heavier demand for upside exposure than the market has typically shown for this name. The stock itself has given back 5.7% over the past month, closing at $195.23, though it has clawed back roughly 2% across the past week — so the options lean into this print looks like a contrarian tilt rather than momentum-chasing.
Short interest tells a less charged story. Bears hold about 3.7% of the free float — a modest position that has declined around 3% over the past month. Borrow costs are cheap at 0.60% and have been broadly stable, while availability remains wide. There is no meaningful squeeze pressure in the lending market, and the ORTEX short score of 37 puts this well below any threshold of acute short-side aggression.
The bull-bear debate turns on production credibility. Bulls point to a dramatic ramp in oil and NGL output, a 40%-plus inventory expansion since end-2022, and more than 15 years of runway in the Appalachian basin. Bears counter that net production additions above natural decline have been limited, that midstream outages and pipeline constraints in Appalachia continue to cap realizations, and that the departure of its CEO adds strategic uncertainty at an inopportune moment. Analyst targets cluster in the $229–$245 range against a current price of $195.23, implying roughly 25% upside on consensus — but the trajectory of recent revisions is mixed. BofA held its Buy with a $237 target in mid-March; UBS, while retaining Buy, trimmed its target to $245 from $260 in April. The valuation is not demanding at 4.4x EV/EBITDA and a PE of 7.1x, but cheap multiples have been a persistent feature of the name.
One ownership note warrants attention. Silver Point Capital — a hedge fund holding 14.4% of shares and a board seat — sold a combined $172 million worth of stock in early March. That is a material reduction by the company's largest holder and an active voice in governance. Index funds and traditional asset managers (BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity) added modestly in Q1, partially offsetting the exit. The print today will test whether Gulfport's production and cash-flow trajectory can close the gap between a discounted valuation and a consensus analyst community that still sees meaningful upside.
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