The biggest earnings week of the year gets underway today. Palantir ($331B) reports Q1 results after the close Monday. Vertex Pharmaceuticals ($108B) also reports today. Tuesday is the headline act — AMD ($588B) drops results after the bell, giving the market its clearest read yet on AI chip demand. Shopify, Pfizer, and Eaton all report Tuesday too. Wednesday brings Walt Disney before the open. Options markets are already pricing in the action — bullish bets are piling into semiconductor names ahead of the AMD print.
Wolfspeed remains the most heavily shorted name in the ORTEX universe. Short interest hit 50.1% of free float on April 30, up from 47% five days earlier. Borrow availability is just 2.1% — making fresh shorts extremely expensive. Options data shows speculative directional bets clustering around near-term expiries. Vital Farms and Conagra Brands also saw notable short interest increases over the past week.
Analyst desks raised targets on chip names heading into earnings. AMD's consensus target moved to $307.50 across 35 buy ratings. Intel also got a bump, though analysts remain far more cautious — 30 holds and 13 sells. Industrial names caught upgrades too. Hubbell gained nearly $8 on its consensus target. Ford and Freeport-McMoRan both saw targets trimmed.
C-suite filings lean bearish. United Rentals CEO Matthew Flannery filed a $22.4M sale. Mueller Industries CEO Gregory Christopher sold $14.2M worth of stock. The notable exception: Toro Corp CEO Petros Panagiotidis filed a $9.5M purchase — nearly 1.5 million shares at $6.45 each.
ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
