Workday reports after the close on May 21 with the sharpest short-versus-options divergence of the year still firmly in place — and Thursday's print will force one side to capitulate.
Short interest has barely moved since the earnings-preview note published yesterday. At 12.8% of the free float — 27.75 million shares — the position has ticked up another 0.4% on the day and 2.5% on the week, consolidating the massive build that took shorts from roughly 20 million to 27 million shares in a single session around May 8-11. The ORTEX short score has held in the high 57s all week, stable but elevated. Crucially, the lending market offers no friction to new entrants: availability runs at 624%, meaning shares available to borrow outnumber shares already borrowed by more than six-to-one. Cost to borrow is just 0.41%. These are the conditions of a deliberate fundamental short, not a crowded squeeze setup.
Options traders remain unconvinced by the bearish thesis. The put/call ratio is 0.70, still roughly 1.1 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.75 and approaching the 52-week low of 0.60. Call volume has dominated the options tape all week, even as the short book grew. The stock itself has climbed 9% over the past week to $129.34, recovering from its lows and amplifying the pain for anyone short from the May 8-11 entry. That combination — record shorts, loose borrow, rising price, call-heavy options — describes a market that is genuinely split rather than leaning one way.
The Street is cautious but not uniformly bearish. Cantor Fitzgerald cut its target to $160 from $200 today while keeping an Overweight rating — a trim that acknowledges near-term pressure without abandoning the bull case. BTIG reiterated its Buy at $175 on Monday. Those bullish holds contrast with the neutral cluster from the February earnings cycle, when Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Citigroup all lowered targets after the last print. The mean price target now sits at $178, implying roughly 38% upside to current levels — a gap that reflects genuine disagreement about whether the delayed deal closures flagged last quarter have been resolved or are a structural sign of slowing demand. BWG Global downgraded to Negative last week, adding to the cautious camp ahead of the print.
The ownership picture adds another layer. Hotchkis and Wiley added nearly 3.9 million shares in Q1, First Eagle added 3.3 million, and Goldman Sachs built a new 2.5-million-share position — all reported as of March 31. Vanguard also added 2.3 million shares through April. That accumulation by value-oriented and institutional buyers runs directly counter to the short buildup of the past two weeks. Founder David Duffield sold roughly $11.6 million worth of shares on April 9, and CFO Zane Rowe sold just over $630,000 on April 7, but both were small relative to total holdings and carry low trade-significance scores.
The last two confirmed earnings reactions showed the stock up 3% the next day and 11% over the following week after the February 2026 print — a sharply positive post-earnings pattern. Whether that pattern repeats depends on whether management addresses the delayed-deal narrative convincingly enough to unwind a short position that, at 12.8% of float, now represents a meaningful overhang regardless of which direction the stock moves after Thursday's close.
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