Ashland Inc. heads into its April 29 quarterly print with short sellers building positions at a notably accelerated pace — making bearish positioning the clearest story into the release.
Short interest has climbed sharply. At 12% of the free float, it has risen 11.6% over the past week and is up more than 15% over the past month — a meaningful and sustained build, not noise. Days to cover stand at 9.3, meaning it would take nearly two weeks of average volume for shorts to unwind. The ORTEX short score has also ticked up, moving from around 57.5 to 60.1 over the past fortnight — not extreme, but directionally consistent with the building pressure.
Options positioning tells a strikingly different story. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.07, the lowest reading of the past 52 weeks and more than 1.3 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.84. That level points to heavily call-dominated positioning — options traders are leaning bullish into the print, even as short sellers move the other way. The divergence is the defining tension of this setup. Borrow conditions offer little signal either way: cost to borrow is running at just 0.54%, and availability remains loose, meaning the short build has not tightened the lending market.
The analyst backdrop is mixed, and the most recent action has moved in one direction. Argus Research cut its target sharply in late March — from $70 to $56 — while keeping a Buy rating, a move that captures the Street's conflicted stance. JP Morgan trimmed its own target to $70 in February while holding Overweight. The consensus mean target of $67.50 implies roughly 18% upside from the current $57 close, but that figure reflects data from early April and should be treated with some caution given subsequent price moves. Bulls point to Ashland's specialty ingredients franchise and margin recovery potential; bears focus on volume pressure in key end markets and the broader macro headwind facing specialty chemicals. Correlated peers including , , and have all drifted lower on the week, suggesting sector-wide caution rather than an ASH-specific selloff.
One prior data point is worth noting. After the February 2026 print, the stock rallied nearly 5% on the day and held most of those gains over the following five sessions — the only recent earnings reaction on record. That single positive outcome may be part of what is sustaining the call-heavy options positioning today. Price is up 7% over the past month despite a modest pullback in the last session, suggesting buyers have been active into the event.
The April 29 print will test whether the bullish options skew or the rising short interest better reflects the near-term reality for Ashland's volumes and margins.
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