Hasbro delivered its Q1 results on May 20 with the stock responding positively — up 3.7% on the day to $97.18 — and the short position that had been building aggressively into the print showing no signs of rapid unwind.
The short interest story is the clearest thread running through this week. Heading into earnings, shorts had surged 34% over the prior month to 5.3% of the free float, and that positioning has largely held. Short interest edged up another 1.3% across the week to 7.49 million shares, with the ORTEX short score settling at 40.7 — essentially flat from the 40.8 level flagged in the pre-earnings note. The borrow market remains relaxed: cost to borrow has eased further to 0.34%, down about 20% over the past month, and availability is extraordinarily loose at over 9,000% — meaning the lending pool is far from strained. Shorts who built into the print have faced zero friction staying put, but they're not paying up to hold the position either.
Options positioning has rotated toward a more bullish tilt following the release. The put/call ratio has drifted down to 0.66, now running slightly below its 20-day average of 0.71 — a modest but meaningful shift from the period around late April, when the ratio was running closer to 0.85 with a more defensive flavour. The z-score of -0.51 is mild, not a screaming signal in either direction, but the direction of travel is notable: options traders have become less defensive since the print landed.
The Street was already leaning bullish, and the earnings result appears to have reinforced that posture. Morgan Stanley lifted its target to $123 as recently as May 14 — a week before the print — keeping an Overweight rating. The consensus stands at buy with a mean target of $113.80, around 17% above the current price. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Citi all raised targets earlier in the year after prior results, though those are more dated. The divergence between the sell-side's constructive view and the short position that built into the print is the defining tension: the shorts haven't yet capitulated, even after a day that went the bulls' way. EPS momentum scores rank in the 78th percentile on a 30-day basis and the 68th percentile on a 90-day horizon, suggesting the earnings beat is part of a pattern rather than a one-off surprise. The dividend score sits in the 98th percentile, though the most recent dividend data in the dataset is stale — the company suspended its regular dividend in 2023 as part of its restructuring, so that factor score likely reflects historical yield characteristics rather than a live payout.
One nuance worth flagging is the insider activity. On May 15 — five days before the earnings date — four executives sold shares at $95.13, including CFO Gina Goetter (roughly $932K), a division president, and the Chief Marketing Officer. These come on top of a cluster of March 13 sells, including CEO Chris Cocks offloading $1.3M. The 90-day net figure shows positive net shares (347K), but that reflects the broader share count rather than a net buying signal; every discrete transaction in the recent window has been a sale. These look like scheduled vesting-related sells rather than a conviction statement, but the pattern of senior management reducing exposure at prices near current levels is worth keeping in the back of the mind.
Most correlated peers had a difficult week. YETI gained 5.5% but BC fell 5.2%, JOUT dropped 6.2%, and MCFT lost 11.5%. Hasbro's 2.8% weekly gain stands out as relative outperformance — a reasonable post-earnings premium from a stock that entered the week with significant short positioning.
The next confirmed event is a June 11 earnings call, making that date the next major inflection point for whether the residual short position continues to consolidate or begins to unwind in earnest.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open HAS on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
