Flowers Foods heads into its Q1 2026 results today with short sellers accelerating bets against the stock at a pace that stands out even within a challenged packaged-foods sector.
Short interest has become the clearest angle into this print. At 15.2% of the free float, FLO is one of the more heavily shorted names in consumer staples — and that position has been building fast. Shorts grew 25% over the past month and 13% in a single week, bringing the ORTEX short score to 68, a level that ranks in the 6th percentile of the market (i.e., more bearishly positioned than 94% of stocks). The borrow market, however, does not yet suggest a crowded squeeze setup. Cost to borrow runs at just 0.44% annually — essentially free — and availability remains ample, meaning new shorts can enter without fighting for inventory.
Options traders, by contrast, are not piling into puts. The put/call ratio is running well below its 20-day average at 0.34, near the lower end of the past year's range. That divergence — shorts adding aggressively while options positioning remains call-heavy — is the sharpest tension heading into the print.
The stock's recent price action adds context. FLO fell 4.4% on Wednesday and is down 10.3% on the week, trading at $7.73. Year-to-date it has shed roughly a quarter of its value. Peers including GIS and were flat to slightly positive on the day, making FLO's drop look company-specific rather than sector-driven. The RSI now reads 36 — oversold territory — while the P/E has compressed to under 10x and EV/EBITDA to roughly 7.9x. A 12-month forward yield running above 10% at current prices flags just how much the market is discounting the dividend's sustainability.
The analyst community has spent the past several months cutting targets with little enthusiasm for a recovery. Deutsche Bank trimmed to $7 in late March while holding a Hold; BNP Paribas lowered to $8 in early April while maintaining an Underperform. The mean consensus target of $10 sits 29% above current levels, but the direction of travel has been uniformly downward. Bulls point to acquisitions like Dave's Killer Bread providing market-share optionality and the possibility that competitive pricing pressures ease. Bears counter with downward EPS estimate revisions — consensus now models roughly $1.05 for fiscal 2025, down sharply from prior projections — alongside legal cost headwinds from worker-classification litigation and ongoing concerns about volume weakness.
Past earnings prints add a sobering pattern. The two February 2026 events both produced double-digit one-day declines of around 11–15%, with losses extending further over the following week. The March event saw a modest bounce on the day but gave back nearly 3% over five sessions. Today's report is less a question of whether the business is stable and more a test of whether management can provide any credible path to stabilising earnings and protecting the dividend at a price already beaten down to multi-year lows.
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