MVIS: Options Alarm, Bears Still Thick on the Ground

MicroVision closed May 13 earnings week at $0.70, up 4% on the week but giving back nearly 4% on the day the results actually dropped — a fitting summary of the stock's perpetual push-pull.

The most charged signal this week is in the options market. Put demand has surged to its most defensive reading in at least a year. The put/call ratio hit 0.13 on May 8, close to the 52-week high of 0.14, and the z-score has climbed to 2.25 standard deviations above the 20-day mean of 0.07. That's a dramatic pivot from a market that has spent most of the past year trading almost exclusively calls. For a $0.70 micro-cap lidar name, the shift tells you that at least some participants are paying to hedge downside — or positioning outright bearish — in a way they haven't bothered with for months.

Short positioning remains extreme, and the recent trend confirms bears have been trimming rather than adding. SI % FF has eased from a peak of roughly 21% of free float in mid-April to 19.7% now — a meaningful step down, though still one of the heaviest short loads in the sector. The ORTEX short score stays elevated at 89.5, close to its 10-day range of 89.5–90.4. Cost to borrow has fallen sharply from nearly 30% APR in early April to around 16.8% today — a sign the borrow market has loosened as some shorts have returned stock. Availability, while not extreme, is consistent with a name that remains genuinely difficult to borrow at scale.

The Street offers thin but directionally mixed coverage. Amerx initiated at Hold on May 11 — the most recent action — while D. Boral Capital downgraded to Hold back in March, joining WestPark Capital, which still carries a Buy with a $2 price target. That target is roughly 3x the current price, which underlines either the bullish case for a technology pivot paying off or how far the stock has fallen from analyst expectations. The bull thesis rests on near-term commercial wins with the MOVIA S platform and exposure to autonomy and defence markets. The bear case is blunter: MicroVision has not yet demonstrated a path from development spend to positive gross margin, and the operating cash burn keeps dilution risk alive.

The insider picture adds a modest counterpoint to the otherwise cautious tone. In mid-March, three board members — including two independent directors — each made open-market purchases at around $0.53. The CEO received a stock award in late March and then sold a small parcel worth roughly $98,000 in early April, a pattern consistent with routine award-and-cover rather than a conviction signal. The CFO's trades are similarly small, covering tax obligations on awards. The board cluster buy in March is the one data point that stands out as a genuine vote of confidence, even if the sums were modest.

On the earnings reaction history, the last confirmed data point — the March 26 Q4 print — produced a one-day drop of nearly 15% and a five-day loss of 6.6%. The Q1 2026 results released this week don't yet carry a price-reaction record in the data, but the day-of decline of approximately 4% is consistent with that pattern of post-print selling.

Lidar peers had a mixed week. INVZ rose 14% and LIDR added 9%, while OUST slipped 5%. MVIS's 4% weekly gain sits in the middle of the pack — neither a standout laggard nor a leader. What to watch next is whether the options market normalises back toward its call-heavy baseline now that earnings are behind the stock, or whether the elevated put/call ratio persists as a structural feature of a name where 20% of the float remains borrowed against it.