Venture Global enters the week caught between two opposing forces: analysts are lifting targets after a strong earnings reaction, while short sellers rebuilt positions at the fastest pace in months.
The analyst story is the real standout this week. Citi's Spiro Dounis upgraded the stock to Buy this morning — raising his target from $12 to $17 — the most decisive Street move in the past month. Morgan Stanley held Overweight and bumped its target from $20 to $22, the highest on the board. Scotiabank also raised its target to $15 from $13. Three upgrades or target lifts in a single day reflects a genuine re-rating impulse, likely triggered by the Q1 earnings release on May 12 that drove a 14.2% one-day gain and followed an earlier reaction of roughly 15.9% in the previous session. The consensus is still cautious overall — 6 buys against 8 holds, with a mean target of $15.16 — but the gap between current price ($13.27) and even neutral targets suggests the Street sees more upside than the positioning data implies. The bull case rests on LNG demand growth and Venture Global's progression through commissioning; bears point to falling global LNG prices, lower contracted strategy exposure, and construction cost risks.
Short interest tells a sharply different story from the analyst upgrades. Shorts rebuilt aggressively this week: short interest as a percentage of free float climbed to 8.4%, up 27% over the past five trading days — one of the steeper weekly jumps in recent history. In absolute terms, shorted shares rose from roughly 32 million to 40 million between May 8 and May 12. The rebuilding followed a period of steady covering through late April, when SI dropped from a peak of around 37 million shares in mid-April to the low 32 millions. The fresh wave of short positioning landed almost exactly as the stock was surging on earnings — suggesting these are new bets, not legacy positions being maintained.
The lending market, however, offers no support to the short thesis. Availability is extremely loose at 773% of short interest, meaning there are nearly eight shares available to borrow for every one currently lent out. Borrowing costs have stayed subdued at 0.43% APR, roughly half the levels seen in late April when the stock was lower. Availability at the 52-week high this lending market has ever been fully tapped, but the current reading is far from that. The ease of borrowing confirms the short rebuild is opportunistic rather than constrained — new shorts can enter freely at minimal cost.
Options positioning has shifted slightly more cautious than usual but not dramatically so. The put/call ratio sits at 0.62, just above its 20-day average of 0.60 and running about one standard deviation elevated. That's a mild tilt toward downside hedging, not an aggressive defensive posture. The 52-week PCR high of 2.28 puts the current level firmly in the middle of the historical range.
Insiders have been consistent sellers. The CFO sold shares in mid-to-late April worth roughly $2.6 million combined, following much larger sales in March — including a $40.6 million transaction on March 19. The General Counsel liquidated over $13 million worth in April alone. Net insider selling over 90 days totals approximately $175 million in value. These sales largely reflect post-IPO lockup-adjacent activity, but the volume is notable and the direction unmistakable. The next confirmed earnings event is scheduled for May 27 — the next data point that will test whether the fresh short interest and upgraded analyst targets are pointing in compatible directions.
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