Itron heads into late May with short sellers visibly emboldened — SI has been rising for weeks while the stock has shed a fifth of its value.
Short interest has climbed steadily to 13.9% of the free float, the highest reading in the 30-day data window and up from roughly 12% just two weeks ago. The acceleration is particularly sharp since May 8, when SI jumped from 12.0% to 13.6% in a single trading week — the sharpest one-week build in the observed period. That move coincides with the stock's Q1 earnings release on May 7, which triggered a modest 1.3% one-day decline and a further 1.7% five-day drift. Shorts appear to have used that soft reaction as an entry point.
The borrow market tells a different story, however. Availability is comfortably loose at 335% — meaning there are more than three times as many shares available to borrow as there are shares currently shorted. Cost to borrow has eased to 0.38%, down nearly 10% on the week and about 14% lower than a month ago. That combination — rising short interest alongside plentiful, cheap availability — signals bears are building positions methodically rather than rushing for scarce inventory. There is no squeeze dynamic in place. The ORTEX short score has risen to 61.3, the highest reading in the recent history, nudging further above the 60 threshold that marks elevated short pressure, but the lending market offers no resistance to continued short accumulation.
Options positioning is broadly neutral. The put/call ratio is running at 1.00, almost exactly at its 20-day average of 1.01, with a z-score near zero. That is a notable contrast to mid-April, when the PCR ran well below 1.0 and reflected more bullish sentiment. The move from call-heavy to balanced reads as a gradual withdrawal of conviction rather than outright defensive hedging.
The Street is split but leans constructively on Itron's longer-term story. The consensus still clusters around Buy and Overweight, with a mean price target of $126.70 — implying roughly 62% upside to Tuesday's $78.02 close. Most of the recent action has been target trims rather than rating downgrades: JPMorgan lowered its target from $133 to $113 in mid-April while holding Overweight, and TD Cowen cut from $145 to $130 late last month but kept its Buy. Stephens reiterated Overweight at $130 as recently as today. Oppenheimer was a counter-move, lifting its target modestly to $135. The pattern is a Street still willing to own the thesis but marking down near-term entry points as the stock falls. On valuation, the P/E has compressed to 12.6x, down nearly 3 points over the past month, and EV/EBITDA is at 9.5x. The EV/EBIT score ranks in the 83rd percentile, suggesting the market is ascribing a relatively lean enterprise multiple for a company with a $4.4bn backlog and record gross margins. EPS momentum scores are weak — 17th and 28th percentile on 30- and 90-day horizons respectively — which helps explain why the price has struggled even as the fundamental backlog narrative holds.
Institutional ownership is broadly passive and stable. BlackRock holds 16.1% and was a minor net buyer in April. More notable is Impax Asset Management, a specialist sustainability-focused manager that added 838,000 shares in Q1, bringing its stake to nearly 5% — a significant vote of confidence from a fund that specifically seeks the kind of grid-technology exposure Itron provides. Soros Fund Management also added about 400,000 shares over the same period. Insider activity has been light and routine: a small SVP sale of 124 shares in May and a cluster of modest sales in February. There is nothing in the insider flow to read as a meaningful directional signal.
The next earnings event is flagged for July 30. Between now and then, the key watch points are whether SI continues climbing above 14% of float — which would take it to a multi-year high — and whether the discount to the mean analyst target ($126.70) begins to attract fresh institutional demand or simply reflects a deteriorating growth outlook as utility capital-spending timelines stretch.
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