WDAY arrives at its May 21 earnings call carrying the heaviest short position in recent memory — and options traders are making a starkly different bet.
Short interest has climbed to 12.5% of the free float, up 34% in a single week and nearly 66% over the past month. The move is abrupt: shares short jumped from roughly 20 million to 27 million between May 8 and May 11 alone — a near-instantaneous surge that placed Workday in the top tier of shorted large-cap software names. The ORTEX short score reflects that shift, jumping from the low 50s to 57.4 over the same period. Despite the wave of new shorts, the lending market remains wide open: availability runs at 653%, meaning shares to borrow still outnumber shares already borrowed by more than six-to-one. Cost to borrow is just 0.45%. This is a conviction short, not a borrow squeeze.
Options traders are not reading from the same script. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.69 — well below its 20-day average of 0.75 and close to its 52-week low of 0.60 — placing it roughly 1.3 standard deviations below the mean. Call volume is dominating ahead of the print. The stock is up 6% over the past month to $125.01, despite a rough week. The contrast is sharp: short sellers are pressing their positions aggressively, while options positioning tilts toward the upside.
The debate hinges on execution credibility rather than market opportunity. Bulls point to a cloud ERP addressable market exceeding $160 billion with only 25% penetration in the Global 2000, paired with non-GAAP operating margins near 30% and subscription revenue growing around 15%. A 12-month forward EPS growth rank in the 83rd percentile signals that consensus still sees meaningful improvement ahead. Bears focus on what the guidance revision already confirmed: longer sales cycles, deal push-outs, and an AI investment pivot from the returning CEO that adds cost before it adds revenue. The stock has shed roughly 45% year-to-date. The most recent analyst actions, within the past week, offer little comfort — BTIG reiterated its Buy at $175, while BWG Global downgraded to Negative, citing a balanced-at-best risk-reward. Most bellwether targets remain well above the current price, though those were largely set in February following the last guidance cut, when Citi trimmed to $148 and Goldman Sachs moved to $206. The gap between those targets and $125 speaks to how quickly sentiment has deteriorated.
Institutional flows add a layer of nuance. Vanguard added 3.2 million shares in Q1, and Hotchkis & Wiley added nearly 3.9 million — suggesting some value buyers are stepping in even as the founder David Duffield sold roughly $11.5 million worth of shares in early April. The insider selling is low-significance by ORTEX's own scoring (2 out of 10), and Duffield's stake remains at 15% of shares outstanding — the selling looks more like routine liquidation than a directional signal.
Thursday's print is therefore a test of whether management can restore credibility on the growth trajectory — specifically whether Q1 results and any FY27 re-guidance narrow the gap between what short sellers currently believe and what the options market is pricing.
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