Uniti Group reports Thursday with one of the most bullish options setups of the past year — yet short sellers have spent the last week aggressively rebuilding positions after an unusual pullback, creating a split picture heading into the print.
Options positioning is running unusually call-heavy. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.16, nearly three standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.23 — close to the 52-week low of 0.08. That's the most call-dominated options flow UNIT has seen in over a year, suggesting the market is positioned for a positive surprise rather than bracing for a miss.
Short interest cuts against that optimism, however. Shorts climbed 15.5% over the past week to 6.4% of the free float — one of the sharpest weekly moves in the 30-day window, reversing a drop in late April. The borrow market remains far from stressed: cost to borrow is just 0.47%, and availability is ample at 566%, well above the 52-week low of 303%. There is no sign of squeeze pressure here — the rebuilding is deliberate, not distressed. The ORTEX short score of 55.5 sits in the bottom third of the historical range, having eased from highs above 57 seen at the start of the week.
Analysts have been nudging targets higher ahead of the report, though conviction is limited. Citigroup's Michael Rollins raised his target to $11.75 on Tuesday while holding a Neutral rating. JP Morgan lifted to $12.00 last week, also keeping Neutral. TD Cowen is more constructive at a $12.00 Buy. Wells Fargo sits at $9.00 Equal-Weight. The consensus mean target of $10.25 is marginally below Tuesday's close of $10.67 — the Street broadly sees limited upside at current levels despite the recent wave of target increases, nearly all of which have maintained sidelined ratings. Elliott Management remains the dominant shareholder at 24.3% of shares, an anchor position that has been static. T. Rowe Price added over 3.3 million shares in Q1, the most notable new institutional conviction in the holder list.
The most recent earnings reaction — a modest 0.5% one-day decline followed by a 4.3% five-day drift lower — suggests the stock has historically not rewarded inline prints. Thursday's result will test whether the surge in call positioning reflects genuine earnings optimism or simply a structural quirk of a low-float telecom infrastructure name that options traders treat differently ahead of binary events.
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