Lincoln National heads into its May 28 Q1 results with short sellers re-emerging after a notable lull — and the Street divided on whether that caution is justified.
Short interest has rebounded sharply over the past two weeks. SI % of FF climbed from roughly 3.3% at the start of May to 4.1% by May 12 — a 15% weekly rise and a 21% gain on the month. That reverses a steady unwind that ran through late April, when SI fell from a 5.6% spike on April 10 (the highest reading in the 30-day window) back toward the low 3s. The short score edged up to 38.5 by May 12, its highest in the recent series, consistent with that rebuilding trend. What makes the move notable is its speed: the bulk of the new short interest arrived in a two-day burst at the end of last week.
The lending market, however, offers no particular stress signal to shorts. Availability remains loose — borrow costs are just 0.45%, down fractionally on the week despite the monthly uptick of about 12%. The borrow market is nowhere near constrained, and the April 10 episode (when availability briefly tightened and SI spiked to 5.6% before reversing hard) showed how quickly positions can be put back on when sentiment shifts. Options are similarly benign. The put/call ratio has been drifting lower, reaching 1.28 — marginally below its 20-day average of 1.29 and well off the 52-week high of 1.53. Options traders are actually slightly less defensive going into the print than they have been on average, even as shorts rebuild. The divergence between shorts and options is the most interesting tension in the current setup.
Analyst activity this week broke in two directions simultaneously. Keefe Bruyette and Wells Fargo both lifted their price targets modestly — to $44 — while keeping Outperform and Overweight ratings, reading the post-earnings picture as better than feared. Evercore ISI trimmed its target by a dollar to $48 but held In-Line. JP Morgan, which has maintained an Underweight, cut from $42 to $40 after the print. The mean consensus target is $42.50 against a current price of $35.09, implying roughly 21% upside, and the EV/EBIT multiple sits at a deep discount to the broader market — the factor score for that metric ranks in the 83rd percentile. Yet EPS momentum is deeply negative: the 30-day rank scores just 23 and the 90-day rank just 18. The forward earnings yield of about 22% looks generous, but the Street hasn't been raising estimates to chase it.
Institutionally, the Bain Capital stake of roughly 9.8% (held flat through year-end 2025) remains a structural feature of the register. BlackRock added 1.76 million shares in the most recent reporting period to reach 9.7% of shares. Those are anchoring flows. On the insider side, the most recent trades of note were a cluster of executive sales at $40.10 in February — well above the current $35.09 — followed by a small CIO purchase of 300 shares at $32.61 in March. The net 90-day insider position is technically positive at around 234,000 shares, but that reflects the award of restricted shares to the CIO more than open-market conviction buying.
The most recent earnings print (May 6–7) sent the stock down just over 4%, continuing a pattern of weak reactions: two of the three most recent readings in the history show negative 1-day moves. The next event is confirmed for May 28. That gives markets two weeks to reprice. Short sellers are building quietly into it. Options traders are not matching that caution. Whether that gap closes — through options markets catching up or shorts trimming — is what makes the next fortnight worth watching.
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