DLocal heads into its May 15 results day with short sellers meaningfully more committed than they were a month ago — and options traders growing more cautious alongside them.
Short interest climbed to 8.4% of the free float, up roughly 17% over the past month and 7.7% over the past week alone. That one-week jump is the most telling signal: bears added positions quickly in the final days before the print. Days to cover stood near 9.5, meaning any forced unwind would take almost two weeks at average volume to clear. Yet the borrow market tells a more relaxed side of the story — cost to borrow fell sharply to just 0.29%, down 29% on the week, and availability remains ample. Short sellers are building positions, but they are not paying a premium to do it. The lending market is not stressed.
Options positioning turned more defensive as the report approached. The put/call ratio moved to 0.32, about 1.4 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.24. That is the highest reading of the past year outside one brief spike. Traders leaned toward downside protection while the stock was already under pressure — DLO fell 7.9% over the prior week and 7.3% over the prior month, closing at $12.66 ahead of the report.
The bull and bear cases pulled in different directions into the print. Bulls pointed to a balance sheet that carries a net cash position of roughly $465 million, a P/E near 12.8x and EV/EBITDA around 7.3x — cheap by fintech standards for a company with analysts' consensus pointing to nearly $1.5 billion in annual revenue. A mean analyst target of $17.65 implied close to 40% upside from recent prices, with JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs both carrying Overweight and Buy ratings respectively. Bears focused on the stock's persistent underperformance and a short-score reading of 60 — mid-range but creeping higher — as well as the EPS momentum ranking in only the 35th percentile over the past 30 days, suggesting estimate revisions were drifting lower. In April, the NY Supreme Court's Appellate Division unanimously dismissed a class action lawsuit against the company, removing one overhang — though the stock barely reacted.
The Q1 report ultimately delivered a split verdict: revenue of $335.9 million beat the consensus estimate of $333 million, but EPS of $0.14 missed the $0.15 forecast. That combination — a top-line beat paired with a margin miss — is precisely the tension the positioning was pricing in, and leaves the debate over DLocal's profitability trajectory very much open for the market to adjudicate.
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