Rayonier heads into its Q1 2026 results today with short sellers more engaged than at any point in recent months.
Short interest has climbed sharply into the print. At 7.3% of the free float, it has risen more than 20% over the past month — a sustained and accelerating build that signals growing conviction among bears rather than opportunistic positioning. Days to cover, per FINRA data, stand at 5.3, meaning any reversal would take meaningful time to unwind. Yet the borrow market itself remains orderly: cost to borrow is modest at 0.46%, and availability is still loose, which means the short base is building not because it has become expensive or difficult to press — it's a deliberate directional bet.
Options are modestly more cautious than usual but fall well short of alarm. The put/call ratio of 0.49 is slightly above its 20-day average of 0.47, sitting roughly 1.2 standard deviations elevated. That's a mild tilt toward downside protection, not a defensive stampede. The stock itself has lost 5.5% over the past month and 5.5% over the past week, closing Wednesday at $20.02 — already pricing in some disappointment ahead of the release.
The analyst community is split, though recent moves lean cautious. Citigroup lowered its target to $22 yesterday, keeping a Neutral rating — effectively marking the floor of consensus close to current prices. Truist lifted its target to $25 earlier in the week while holding at Hold. The mean target across the Street is $26.17, implying roughly 31% upside from current levels, but that gap partly reflects the stock's recent slide rather than fresh optimism. Bears can point to the company's own guidance: Rayonier dramatically cut its Q2 2025 Adjusted EBITDA outlook to $30–40 million from $57 million-plus, with southern sawmill and pulp mill demand weak and salvage timber flooding regional markets. Bulls counter with improving average delivered pulpwood prices — up 3% year-over-year to $30.05 per ton — and a 7% rise in domestic sawtimber pricing, plus the expectation that higher softwood lumber duties on Canadian imports ultimately benefit domestic timberland operators. The EPS momentum factor ranks in the 94th percentile over 30 days, suggesting estimate revisions have recently been running in the right direction despite the bearish fundamental backdrop.
One institutional note worth flagging: BlackRock added 13.1 million shares as of April 30, lifting its stake to 9.5% — a substantial move that puts a major passive and active manager firmly on the long side even as short interest climbs. That divergence between rising shorts and a heavyweight buyer building its position sets up the print as a genuine test of whether Rayonier's timber pricing recovery has enough momentum to close the gap between bear-case stumpage pressures and bull-case tariff tailwinds.
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