Options traders flooded into ESTC calls on Monday. The put/call ratio hit 0.12 — a 52-week low, sitting 3 standard deviations below its 20-day mean. The stock gained 6.5% on the day.
Yet short sellers are not retreating.
Short interest rose 13.9% over the past week to 5.1% of free float. That's also a 16.1% increase over the past month. The two moves — a flood of call buying and a build-up of short positions — are pulling in opposite directions on the same name.
Earnings are nine days away, due May 28. That context matters. Both sides may be positioning for a binary outcome. The stock has a painful track record around results. It dropped 10.2% the day after its February 2026 report. The print before that saw a 14.1% one-day decline.
The analyst picture is nuanced. Guggenheim's Howard Ma lowered his price target this morning — from $116 to $106 — while keeping a Buy rating. The mean consensus target across the Street sits at $78.21. With the stock at $53.91, that implies roughly 45% upside to the average target.
RBC Capital and Morgan Stanley have also trimmed targets in recent weeks but held their constructive ratings. The pattern: analysts believe in the story, but have repeatedly marked down their near-term expectations.
Several active managers added significantly in Q1. Pictet Asset Management added 1.96 million shares. D.E. Shaw added 1.47 million. First Trust Advisors added 2.2 million shares as of April 30. These are material builds — not incremental position adjustments.
Against that, a cluster of insiders — including CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni, CFO Navam Welihinda, and founder/CTO Shay Banon — sold shares in March at around $52.28. The stock is currently trading just above those sale prices.
Availability remains loose at 1,829% — the lending market is not under stress despite the short interest build. The borrow cost of 0.41% is low and falling. Short sellers face no squeeze pressure heading into May 28.
The real question is which signal — the call-buyer optimism or the short-seller buildup — proves correct after earnings.
Data summary
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