OHI enters the week of May 11 with three bullish analyst target raises since earnings, a recovering stock price, and short interest quietly receding — a setup that looks more like relief than conviction.
The most notable move of the week came from UBS this morning. Michael Goldsmith raised his price target to $54 while maintaining a Buy, making UBS the third firm in two weeks to lift its target after OHI's May 1 earnings. Citi raised to $52 post-results, and RBC nudged to $48 the same week. The direction is clearly upward. Against that, Bank of America's April 14 downgrade to Underperform — with a $46 target — hangs in the background. That rating sits below the current $47.65 price. The consensus mean target is $49.94, implying roughly 4.5% upside from here, which is modest but consistent with a name trading near the top of its recent range.
Shorts have been quietly retreating from a more aggressive position built in early April. Short interest peaked around 13.3 million shares in the first week of April — near the 90-day high — before falling sharply after April 10. It now sits at 4.1% of free float, down roughly 9% over the past month. The borrowing market offers no squeeze signal: cost to borrow ticked up 28% on the week to around 0.49%, but that remains cheap in absolute terms. Borrow availability is very loose — well above any threshold that would concern a short — and the 52-week peak utilization of 9% is well behind us, with utilization now running near 3%. The lending market is simply not tight.
Options positioning tilts modestly defensive. The put/call ratio is running at 1.44, above its 20-day average of 1.34 — but only about 0.6 standard deviations above that mean, placing it far from any extreme. The 52-week PCR range runs from 0.36 to 2.16, so the current level is merely above average, not alarming. What is notable is the shift: through late April, the PCR was tracking closer to 1.13–1.15, and it jumped sharply around May 1 — the same day earnings landed with a mild negative 1-day reaction of -1.6%. Options holders added protection after the print, not before, and have held that positioning into this week.
The stock scores back up the improving narrative selectively. The dividend score ranks in the 90th percentile — appropriate for a REIT known for its income credentials and a 12-month forward yield near 5.7%. RSI14 is at 61, reflecting momentum without being overbought. EPS momentum is weak, ranking in the 17th percentile on a 30-day basis, pointing to muted near-term earnings revision activity. The EV/EBITDA multiple has expanded about 0.1 turn over 30 days to 15.3x — not dramatic, but the PE has re-rated more notably, up roughly 7% over the same period to 23.5x, driven largely by the price recovery. Among peers, CTRE was the week's standout with a 7% gain, against OHI's 3.3%. SBRA added 2.9%, while LTC and WELL trailed with sub-1% and 1.5% moves respectively — suggesting OHI performed in line with the middle of the skilled-nursing and senior-housing REIT pack.
The next earnings call is scheduled for June 5. With short interest fading, analyst targets edging higher, and options modestly elevated but not extreme, the setup heading into that date is less about positioning pressure and more about whether the fundamental stabilisation story — operator health and capital deployment — holds up in Q1 detail.
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