Euronet Worldwide heads into the week of May 18 with a striking divergence: options traders have made the most aggressive bullish rotation in the past year, yet the stock keeps falling and shorts remain stubbornly elevated.
The options story is the most striking data point this week. The put/call ratio collapsed to 0.48 — its lowest reading in the past 52 weeks and nearly 4.3 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.97. That is an extreme call-side surge almost never seen on this name. The move arrives even as the stock slid another 2.7% on Tuesday to $67.17, extending its one-month loss to nearly 10%. Call buyers are leaning hard against the tape here.
Short interest adds a different layer to that picture. At roughly 12.8% of free float, the short position remains heavy — down from a mid-April peak above 14% but still representing over 4.4 million shares net short. The borrow market tells a relaxed story: cost to borrow is barely above 0.5% annualised, and availability, far from tight, is running at 333% of current short interest. With more than three times as many shares available to lend as are currently borrowed, there is no mechanical squeeze pressure. Short sellers can access borrows freely, and the ORTEX short score of 63.9 — essentially flat on the week — reflects a structural rather than climactic short position.
Analyst opinion is broadly constructive but losing conviction on price. The most recent action, from Needham in late April, lifted its target to $85 after the Q1 print — a buy maintained, target raised. Earlier in April, DA Davidson trimmed its target from $112 to $102 while keeping buy. The mean target across covering analysts is $88.57, implying roughly 32% upside from the current $67.17. That gap has widened as the stock has sold off, which cuts both ways: it could attract value buyers, or it could signal the Street is simply lagging a deteriorating fundamental trend. Wolfe Research sits at the bearish end, carrying an Underperform from January with an $80 target. Valuation is not obviously stretched: the P/E is below 6, EV/EBITDA around 3.8, and the forward earnings growth factor ranks in the 96th percentile of the universe — suggesting the market is discounting the growth trajectory more than the raw multiples imply.
The institutional register offers one genuinely notable datapoint. Turtle Creek Asset Management lifted its position by 1.8 million shares to over 3 million — an 141% increase, and now the third-largest reported holder at 8.1% of shares outstanding. That is a meaningful bet by a long-only concentrated manager. Vanguard and BlackRock hold 9.9% and 9.2% respectively with minimal changes, while Voss Capital and Reinhart Partners both added meaningfully in Q1. Insider flows are less dramatic: the most recent net figure over 90 days is modestly positive in share terms, though the headline is a $1.7M sell from founder and CEO Michael Brown in late February — routine in context but worth noting as a directional data point.
The most recent earnings event, on April 29, produced a 4.4% one-day loss and a 8% five-day loss — the only reaction data available. The next print is scheduled for July 24. Between now and then, the central tension is less about the absolute short position — which is gradually unwinding — and more about whether the aggressive call buying reflects informed positioning ahead of a catalyst or simply a contrarian bet against the recent slide. The 52-week low on the put/call ratio and the 90-day high on share availability provide the bookends to watch.
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