CART heads into its May 22 earnings report with a notable contradiction: the stock is up 13% on the month, yet short sellers added positions this week rather than retreating.
Short interest has climbed back toward the elevated end of its recent range, hitting 9.87% of the free float on May 5 — up from a two-week low of 9.13% in late April. That rebound of nearly 80 basis points in two weeks keeps short interest materially above where it spent most of mid-April. The borrow market gives little comfort to squeezed bears, though. Availability remains loose, and the cost to borrow is just 0.47% annualised — barely above flat, and actually down 4% over the week. Borrow is cheap and plentiful; there's no sign of supply stress. Options traders are firmly in the bullish camp. The put/call ratio is 0.34, only fractionally above its 20-day average of 0.32, and at the lower end of a 52-week range that stretches all the way to 1.37. Call positioning dominates this book — options sentiment is not hedged, it's outright constructive.
The Street broadly agrees with that bullish tilt, though conviction is uneven. Jefferies upgraded CART to Buy in late March, lifting its target to $45, consistent with the stock having risen materially from the $36 range at which most trades were printed by insiders earlier this year. The consensus mean target is now $50.15 — roughly 15% above the current price of $43.74. The bulls' thesis rests on 14% GTV growth last quarter, the highest since late 2022, and advertising revenue growing 10-11%. Bears counter that off-site ad growth comes at lower margins, that EBITDA estimates have been trimmed, and that the fading of exclusivity arrangements with partners like Kroger could soften operating leverage. Valuation is not stretched on its headline multiples: EV/EBITDA trades at 7.7x, and the P/E of 10.6x reflects the cash-heavy balance sheet of a company that still has no dividend obligation. One standout from the factor scores is that the 12-month forward EPS growth estimate ranks in the 99th percentile of the universe — analysts are pencilling in meaningful earnings acceleration. EPS surprise, however, ranks in just the 14th percentile, so the acceleration has yet to be demonstrated.
Insider activity over the past 90 days has been consistently one-directional — all sells. The CEO, CFO, and General Counsel all sold on February 13 at prices around $36.30. The General Counsel added further sales in March across multiple tranches totalling over $4.6 million. The Chief Accounting Officer sold again in April at $40.25. None of these transactions are unusual in isolation — they are modest in scale relative to the overall share count and carry significance scores of 1-2 out of 10. However, the concentration of selling by operating executives near the same price levels, as the stock climbed, is worth noting. Founder Apoorva Mehta retained his 7.4% stake unchanged. The most notable institutional entry this period is Dimensional Fund Advisors, which added over 2 million shares by end of March.
The most recent earnings print on May 1 produced a 2.2% next-day gain, a muted reaction compared to February's result which drove a 10.5% one-day move and held a 9.1% gain through the subsequent five days. The May 22 report is the next test of whether that GTV acceleration can compound, and whether advertising margins are stabilising or still under pressure from the mix shift toward off-site formats.
With short interest rebuilt near 10% of float, cheap borrow keeping the door open for further positioning, and calls heavily outweighing puts, the next few weeks narrow to a straightforward question: what the earnings print says about advertising margin trajectory, and whether the market's forward EPS optimism can be validated rather than revised away again.
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