United Therapeutics is heading into the back half of May with a notable divergence: short sellers are retreating at the same time a key analyst is turning more bullish.
Short interest has been unwinding steadily for a month. It peaked near 7.5% of the free float in late April and has dropped to 5.9% — a decline of roughly 1.6 percentage points in three weeks and 10% down on the week alone. The ORTEX short score has eased to 42.5 from above 45 just a fortnight ago. The borrow market reinforces this story: availability remains loose, with cost to borrow barely above 0.55% and utilisation holding in the low single digits. There is no squeeze dynamic here, just a quiet unwinding.
The catalyst may well be the Q1 print. UTHR reported on May 6 and the stock barely flinched on the day — down less than 0.5% — then recovered to show a gain of 1.3% over the five-day window. That muted reaction gave short sellers less to hold onto, and the drift lower in positioned shares over subsequent sessions suggests some elected to close rather than reload.
Wells Fargo's Benjamin Burnett delivered the most consequential analyst move of the week. He upgraded UTHR to Overweight from Equal-Weight on May 7 and raised his target sharply from $575 to $738, citing the Tyvaso IPF opportunity as materially underpriced. Bulls point to the TETON-1 data showing clinically meaningful FVC preservation in IPF patients, with potential peak revenue from Tyvaso cited at $5 billion — a figure that would represent a step-change from the current PAH franchise base. RBC held its Outperform but trimmed its target slightly to $701, a cosmetic move that barely dents the bullish consensus. Nine of the covering analysts carry buy-equivalent ratings. The mean target of $663 implies around 17% upside to the current $569 close, though Morgan Stanley's Equal-Weight at $519 — below the current price — marks the sceptical outlier.
Options positioning has shifted notably more bullish in recent days. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.65, more than 1.4 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.80. Two weeks ago the PCR was running close to 0.90; the move lower reflects a meaningful rotation toward calls relative to puts. That aligns with the short covering trend and the post-earnings settling.
Founder and CEO Martine Rothblatt sold approximately $5.5 million in shares across multiple tranches on May 13, with prices clustered in the $575-$584 range. This is a recurring feature of her holding structure rather than a fresh bearish signal — her shareholding actually increased by 40,000 shares in the period ending May 6 according to institutional filings, and she remains among the largest individual holders with a 1.6% stake. The significance scores on the individual transactions are low, suggesting programmatic execution. The net 90-day insider position is modestly positive at roughly $15 million in net purchases, which does not point to any obvious insider concern about the outlook.
The next earnings event is flagged for June 26. Between now and then, the IPF narrative — specifically whether TETON-1 regulatory progress hardens the bull case enough to close the gap to sell-side targets — is the thread most worth following.
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