Pinterest heads into its May 21 Q1 print with short sellers retreating sharply — but options traders leaning bullish while the stock hovers well below analyst targets.
The most striking development in the lending market is how quickly the short position has unwound. Short interest has fallen nearly 19% over the past month to 11% of the free float, with almost all of that decline arriving in the past two weeks. At the same time, borrow availability remains ample and cost to borrow is a negligible 0.45%, confirming this is an orderly cover rather than a forced squeeze. Availability is consistent with a well-supplied lending pool — there is no sign of pressure on either side of the trade. The stock itself is up about 4% over the past month to $19.47, though it pulled back 8.5% on the week, a reminder that the path has been choppy.
Options positioning actually tilts the other way: the put/call ratio has dropped to 0.77, more than a standard deviation below its 20-day average of 0.84, and well off the 52-week high of 1.15. That reading reflects lighter-than-normal demand for downside protection — a more constructive lean heading into the release than the raw short-interest picture alone would suggest.
The analyst community moved in one direction after the last quarterly print: up. Virtually every firm covering raised its price target following early May results, with Wells Fargo lifting to $28 and Morgan Stanley moving to $30, both maintaining positive ratings. JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Piper Sandler also lifted targets while staying on Neutral — a common pattern signalling the Street sees improving fundamentals without yet committing to a full re-rating. The consensus mean target of $27.72 implies roughly 42% upside to Friday's close, a gap that frames how deeply discounted the stock remains relative to where analysts think it should trade. Bulls point to the lower-funnel ad product buildout and the tvScientific integration as genuine revenue diversification. Bears counter that user engagement growth has been modest — monthly active users barely moved last quarter — and that international advertising headwinds tied to large retail clients and geopolitical noise continue to cap the ARPU story.
The print on May 21 is therefore a test of whether the ad revenue recovery is broadening or whether the early-May beat was a one-time uplift from a handful of domestic advertisers, and whether ARPU growth can accelerate before the market loses patience with a valuation re-rating that, so far, has largely failed to materialise.
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