Apple Hospitality REIT heads into mid-May with short sellers beating a rapid retreat and options traders tilting decisively toward calls — a setup that mirrors the stock's 11% recovery over the past month.
The short interest story is the most striking element of this week's data. At 7.2% of the free float, the short position remains elevated in absolute terms. But the direction of travel is aggressive: shorts fell nearly 17% over the past week alone and are down close to 19% over the past month, from a peak near 9.7% of the float in early April. The ORTEX short score, which ran above 57 in late April, dropped to 48.7 by Tuesday — a meaningful shift out of the bearish zone within two weeks. Borrow availability is extremely loose at roughly 1,584% of estimated short interest, meaning there is ample stock available to lend for new shorts who want it. Cost to borrow barely registers at 0.43%, and has been largely flat all month. The picture is one of shorts closing positions into a rising stock — not a disorderly squeeze, but an orderly unwind.
Options positioning reinforces the shift in sentiment. The put/call ratio is running below its recent average at 0.42, more than one standard deviation beneath the 20-day mean of 0.47. That flags a tilt toward call activity relative to recent norms — unusual for a REIT that spent much of April under tariff-related macro pressure. The 52-week PCR range puts this week's reading toward the bullish end, well clear of the defensive peaks seen earlier in the spring.
The Street has grown more constructive just as the stock has moved. This week Cantor Fitzgerald raised its price target on APLE from $14 to $16, maintaining Overweight, the most bullish call among recent movers. Earlier in the cycle, Barclays held its Overweight rating while trimming to $13 in early April, and Wells Fargo cut to $12 on an Equal-Weight. Ladenburg initiated at Neutral with a $13 target in late March. The consensus mean target runs near $13.63 — below the current $13.83 close — which means Cantor's fresh $16 target sits noticeably above consensus. On valuation, EV/EBITDA has eased slightly over the past month to around 10.95x, and the dividend yield-to-price ratio has moderated as the share price recovered. Factor scores present a mixed picture: the dividend score ranks in the 69th percentile, EV/EBIT is solid at the 67th, but EPS momentum over both 30 and 90 days is weak (21st and 14th percentiles respectively) — a reminder that the earnings trajectory has not yet turned.
Institutional ownership is stable and heavily index-weighted. BlackRock holds 16.7% of shares, Vanguard 14.1%, and State Street a further 5.5%. No major holder reported a dramatic move in the most recent filings. Founder Glade Knight's 4.6% stake remains intact. Insider activity on the record dates back to early March, when the CEO and CFO received stock awards alongside small routine sales — routine compensation-linked transactions, nothing materially directional.
The earnings history adds useful context. The most recent result — Q1 2026, reported May 5 — drove a 6.5% next-day gain and a further 5.1% return over the following week. The print before that produced a more modest 1.6% one-day move. The next report is scheduled for August 6. Between now and then, what warrants watching is whether the short unwind continues as the stock closes in on consensus analyst targets, or whether the weak EPS momentum score reasserts itself and draws fresh bearish interest back into the name.
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