TJX has just closed the book on a week defined by reversal: the bearish positioning that dominated the pre-earnings setup was decisively unwound after a blowout Q1 print, leaving the stock at $150.68 and the question now squarely about where sentiment settles from here.
The earnings report itself was unambiguous. Q1 EPS hit $1.19 against a $1.01 consensus — an 18-cent beat on a stock where analysts rarely get that wrong. Revenue of $14.32 billion topped the $14.00 billion estimate, and management followed it immediately with raised full-year EPS guidance of $5.08–$5.15 and a lifted buyback range of $2.75–$3.0 billion for fiscal 2027. The stock gained 4% on the day. That reaction is consistent with prior earnings history: the February print generated a modest 0.65% next-day move and a 2.6% five-day move — today's response was meaningfully sharper, reflecting how defensive the pre-trade had become.
Positioning is now in active unwind mode, but not yet neutral. Short interest came off its peak — shares short pulled back from the ~15.3 million level hit mid-week to 14.9 million by May 19. At 1.34% of free float, it remains well above the ~11.3 million level that prevailed before the pre-earnings surge. The lending market tells the same story: availability is extremely loose, with borrow available many times over relative to outstanding short interest, and cost to borrow has fallen sharply — down roughly 28% on the week to 0.37%. That's well below the 0.52% spike seen earlier in May. The borrow market has clearly eased, but shorts have not fully exited. The put/call ratio has also retreated from its 52-week high of 1.33 hit on May 13, back to 1.28 — still above its 20-day average of 1.15, still about 1.3 standard deviations elevated. Hedging demand is fading, but it hasn't normalised.
The Street response has been prompt and constructive. JP Morgan's Matthew Boss raised his target to $174 on May 18, maintaining an Overweight, while Truist Securities initiated with a Buy and a $175 target on the same day. Those two moves bracket the consensus mean price target of $172.50 — implying roughly 14% upside to the current $150.68. The analyst recommendation differential factor ranks in the 92nd percentile, reflecting how one-sided the bullish consensus actually is. The bear case — as articulated ahead of earnings — centred on flat store growth, potential consumer spending slowdown, and margin pressure from rising off-price competition. The Q1 results undermined all three pillars simultaneously: comp sales were strong across all four segments, margins expanded, and management guided confidently higher. EPS surprise ranks in the 72nd percentile. Forward EPS growth momentum is more muted, ranking in the 27th percentile on a 12-month year-on-year basis, which is worth watching as the market prices in fiscal 2027 expectations. The PE sits at 28.2x, down about 2 points over the past 30 days — a modest derating even as the fundamental picture improved, which reflects how much the pre-earnings selloff had compressed the multiple.
On the institutional side, the ownership register is stable and broadly constructive. BlackRock added 1.7 million shares in the most recent filing period to hold 9.7% of the company. Geode added 2.2 million shares. UBS Asset Management made the largest percentage move among top holders, adding 5.6 million shares. The pattern across the top fifteen holders is incremental accumulation rather than rotation out — no major position reductions are visible in the April data. Insider activity, by contrast, has been one-directional: CEO Ernie Herrman sold 26,000 shares on April 10 at $161.60 and 83,000 shares on March 30 at $155.79 — a combined $17 million in disposals. The CFO and Executive Chairman also sold on April 10. The net 90-day insider figure is a net positive in share count terms due to award grants, but the cash transactions are unambiguously sell-side. This is routine for a large-cap executive selling near multi-year highs, but worth noting given the stock is now 7% below the April 10 sale price.
The next earnings date is June 9. With the Q1 setup now resolved, the market's attention will likely shift to how much of the full-year guidance raise reflects structural demand strength versus a particularly favourable spring buying environment — and whether the short sellers who piled in ahead of May 20 continue to exit, or rebuild into the next print.
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