Goldman Steps Back as INVZ Heads Into Earnings

Innoviz Technologies enters its Q1 2026 earnings call — scheduled for tomorrow, May 14 — with a 14% weekly gain on the stock and a Goldman Sachs downgrade hanging over the name simultaneously.

The borrow market tells a genuinely crowded story. Short interest runs at roughly 10.5% of the free float, essentially flat for the past six weeks and unchanged in any meaningful way over the month. What's notable is the availability picture: for most of April and into early May, available shares in the lending pool measured less than 6% of outstanding short interest — meaning for every 100 shares already borrowed short, fewer than six remained to lend. That's an extremely tight borrow environment. It loosened somewhat on May 12 to around 12%, but that single-day improvement follows nearly four straight weeks of readings below 6%. Cost to borrow has eased from above 3.4% in early April to around 2.5% now — still not negligible for a sub-dollar stock, but the direction of travel is lower. The ORTEX short score of 76.5 ranks in the top percentile for short pressure across the universe.

Options positioning skews hard toward calls. The put/call ratio is running at just 0.09, close to the 52-week low of 0.076 and well below the 52-week high of 0.68. There is near-zero demand for downside protection via options. Combined with the stock's 14% gain on the week and 16% gain over the past month, the options market reflects a momentum-chasing rather than hedging posture.

The Street picture is sharply divided. Goldman Sachs' Mark Delaney downgraded INVZ to Neutral on April 14 and cut his target from $1.25 to $0.75 — essentially flagging that the stock was fairly valued at levels below current trading. That target now sits well below the current price of $0.79 after this week's rally. Against that, Amerx initiated coverage on May 11 with a Buy and a $2.77 target. The consensus sits at hold with just two covering analysts — a very thin bench for drawing conclusions. The bull case rests on vehicle production beginning in 2027 and revenue reaching $101 million by FY2026. The bear case centers on execution risk in series production and the well-documented headwinds facing SPAC-listed technology companies. Valuation data on file is stale and should not be leaned on.

State Street materially added to its position — adding over 2.3 million shares in the quarter reported to April 30. Qube Research & Technologies also built a fresh position of roughly 2.3 million shares. On the other side, Millennium Management trimmed by 2.5 million shares. Renaissance Technologies entered with a new position of 1.9 million shares. CEO Omer Keilaf added 292,000 shares as of March 18. The institutional churn is notable for a micro-cap name with only 93 reported holders.

The two most recent earnings releases — in November 2025 and February 2026 — both produced negative reactions. The day-1 moves were modest (-4.2% and -0.6%), but five-day drift ran to -3.8% and -4.7% respectively, suggesting the market absorbed the news with a lag rather than an instant reaction. Tomorrow's release is the most immediate event to watch — specifically whether the production timeline for the 2027 vehicle launch shows any change, and whether the Goldman downgrade's $0.75 target gets re-examined in light of the stock's recovery above that level.