Alumis Inc. heads into Thursday's earnings release with options traders making an unusually aggressive bull bet — one of the most lopsided in the past year.
The call-side dominance is striking. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.28, more than two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.41. That is the most bullish options skew ALMS has seen in recent months, and it comes despite a stock that has pulled back 14% over the past month to $21.53, including an 8% drop on May 14 following the company's most recent announcement. The past week has only extended that softness, with shares off another 8%. Options traders appear to be fading that weakness rather than hedging against further declines.
Short sellers have been quietly retreating. Short interest, at 10.7% of the free float, remains elevated but has fallen sharply — down more than 11% over the past week and roughly 16% from its late-April peak near 12.5 million shares. Crucially, the borrow market has loosened dramatically. Availability has expanded to over 1,000% — meaning roughly ten shares are available to borrow for every one already lent out — a dramatic reversal from the much tighter conditions seen through April and early May, when availability ran as low as 420%. Cost to borrow at 0.52% is low and barely rising, suggesting the short-covering is orderly rather than forced.
The analyst debate is almost entirely bullish, but with a calibration dispute on value. Wells Fargo and Guggenheim both raised their targets this week — to $51 and $34 respectively — while maintaining positive ratings. Chardan lifted its target to $40 on May 19. The one dissenting voice was HC Wainwright, which downgraded to Neutral on May 15 while keeping its $25 target unchanged. The mean consensus target of $40.10 implies roughly 86% upside from current levels. Bulls point to envudeucitinib's Phase III data in psoriasis and the upcoming SLE readout as near-term inflection points. Bears argue the twice-daily dosing formulation faces a crowded field of once-daily oral options and established biologics, and that a delayed once-daily launch could limit commercial uptake. Institutionally, Deep Track Capital and T. Rowe Price both built new positions of meaningful size in Q1, while BlackRock added over 2.6 million shares as of April — a broadly constructive ownership shift ahead of the print.
Thursday's release will test whether the clinical data and cash runway can justify re-rating the stock closer to where the bullish majority of the Street has priced it, or whether the HC Wainwright downgrade signals a growing cohort that sees the competitive threat as a structural ceiling.
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