Williams-Sonoma heads into its May 22 earnings report with options traders sending the clearest bearish signal in months — against a backdrop of falling analyst targets and a stock already down 13% in four weeks.
The sharpest data point is the put/call ratio, which jumped to 1.48 on Monday — more than three standard deviations above its 20-day mean of 1.13. That puts demand for downside protection at its most elevated reading in recent memory, just two days before the print. The stock itself closed at $168.64 on Friday, down 7.4% on the week and having shed roughly a quarter of its value from its recent highs near $215. That kind of price damage, arriving pre-announcement rather than post, suggests the market is actively re-pricing risk before the numbers land.
The analyst community has done little to arrest the slide. RBC Capital lowered its target to $191 on Monday — still above the market price, but down sharply from $213 — while Wells Fargo trimmed to $185 and Citigroup cut to $200, all within the past week. The consensus target now rests near $204, implying around 21% upside from here, but the direction of revisions tells its own story: every recent move has been downward. Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to Buy in mid-April with a $218 target, and that optimism has been progressively undermined by a succession of target cuts from firms that kept their ratings unchanged. Bulls point to WSM's B2B expansion strategy, reduced promotions, and the possibility of an EPS near $9.25 in 2026 with 5% sales growth as signs the business model remains sound. Bears counter that tariff costs are mounting, the consumer backdrop is softening, and margin uncertainty has not gone away.
The lending market offers no additional pressure on the bearish side. Availability is extremely loose — nearly 800% relative to current short interest — meaning shares are easy to borrow and there is no squeeze dynamic in play. Short interest itself has drifted lower, falling nearly 5% over the past week to around 5.7% of the free float. Cost to borrow is a negligible 0.47%. Peers tell a similar tale of broad sector weakness: FND fell 16% on the week, ONEW dropped 12%, and HD and LOW both lost around 5–6% — WSM is moving in lock-step with a sector that is broadly under pressure from the same macro forces.
The most recent print — March 18 — produced only a 0.2% one-day move, followed by a mild five-day pullback. Thursday's report will test whether the company's margin story has held up against tariff headwinds and whether any guidance update can justify the gap between where the stock trades now and where analysts still think it should be.
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