Webull Corporation heads into its May 21 earnings report with shorts quietly rebuilding and options traders the most call-heavy they have been all year.
Short interest has climbed back to roughly 5% of the free float after drifting lower through mid-April. The move represents a 22% increase over the past month — short sellers adding meaningfully ahead of the print. A day-on-day jump of 5% on May 18 added another layer of conviction to the move. Yet the borrow market doesn't signal urgency. Cost to borrow sits near 0.50%, barely above floor-level rates. Availability is loose at 272%, meaning far more shares remain available to borrow than are currently out on loan. The lending market is wide open; the shorts building positions face no squeeze pressure.
Options positioning points in a different direction. Traders are heavily tilted toward calls, with the put/call ratio at 0.17 — running nearly two standard deviations above its 20-day mean of 0.15. That sounds contradictory, but with a 52-week PCR low of 0.13, this is still deep in call-dominant territory. The ratio is elevated relative to recent weeks, but from a 52-week lens, this is structurally a calls-heavy market: a put/call of 0.68 was the year-high. Options traders, in other words, remain broadly positioned for upside even as they've nudged toward slightly more caution. The stock itself is flat on the week at $7.00, down roughly 0.8% on the day, and up 4% over the past month.
The bull case rests on momentum in the underlying business. Q3 2025 revenues rose 55% year-over-year to $156.9 million. Revenue per trade climbed to 7.6 cents. Client margin balances hit $689 million, up 43% annually. Rosenblatt has maintained a Buy rating, though it has trimmed its target twice since initiating — from $19 to $12 — most recently in March. Three analysts carry Buy-equivalent ratings, with a consensus target of $11.67, implying significant upside from the $7 level. The bear case centres on concentration risk: Webull's revenue is heavily transaction-dependent, crypto volatility has already driven Q4 estimate cuts of around 30%, and declining retail activity and lower market volatility remain structural headwinds. Peers HOOD and COIN fell 5.3% and 6.8% respectively over the past week, signalling sector-wide pressure heading into the week.
Historical reactions have been mixed. The April 24 print produced a +3.3% one-day move that faded to +1.7% over five days. Before that, the March print triggered a -3.9% day-one decline that extended to -8.1% over the following week. The May 21 report tests whether Webull's Q3 growth trajectory has held against a quarter marked by crypto headwinds — and whether transaction revenue dependency has become a story or just a risk.
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