InMode heads into the week with one notable tension: options traders are the most defensively positioned they have been in months, even as short sellers have been steadily trimming exposure since April.
The clearest signal is in options. The put/call ratio has climbed to 0.88, more than 2.6 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.81 — the most skewed reading of the past year aside from the 52-week high of 1.26. That is a meaningful jump in demand for downside protection relative to recent norms, and it has arrived without any corresponding spike in short interest. Something in the near-term setup is making options traders more cautious than the broader positioning picture would suggest.
Short interest tells a less aggressive story. The short position has been on a slow retreat since mid-April, falling from a peak near 6.5% of the free float to 5.85% now — a roughly 10% reduction in the past month. Cost to borrow has also drifted lower, now running at 0.46% annually, about half where it was a month ago. Availability in the lending market is generous at 670% of current short interest, meaning there are more than six times as many shares available to borrow as there are currently shorted. None of that points to a crowded or stressed short position. The ORTEX short score of 45.9 — nudging lower over the past two weeks from a brief peak near 50 just after Q1 results — sits in neutral territory.
The Street has a mixed but slightly cautious posture. Following Q1 results on May 6, both Barclays and Baird trimmed their price targets — Barclays to $19 from $21 while maintaining Overweight, Baird to $14 from $17 while staying Neutral. The consensus mean target sits at $16.25 against a current price of $13.97, implying roughly 16% upside on paper, though the direction of analyst revisions has been uniformly downward across firms over the past year. The bull case rests on InMode's 27.5% operating margin, installed-base expansion and a 9% rebound in U.S. domestic sales. Bears point to a sub-5% revenue CAGR outlook, EPS growth lagging revenue, and structural margin pressure ahead. On valuation, the stock trades at a P/E of 10.1 and EV/EBITDA of 4.3 — among the cheapest readings in the medical technology space on those metrics — and the factor score for EV/EBIT ranks in the 98th percentile of the universe. Value is clearly present; the debate is whether it is durable.
Institutional ownership adds a modestly constructive layer. CEO Moshe Mizrahy added 800,000 shares in the quarter to March, lifting his stake to 6.8% of shares outstanding. Steel Partners built a new position of over 1 million shares, taking its stake to 2.8%. Renaissance Technologies and BlackRock both added modestly. Millennium trimmed by roughly 617,000 shares, and Goldman Sachs reduced by 413,000. On balance, the insider-heavy buying from the executive chair alongside new positioning from Steel Partners suggests at least some conviction at current levels from those closest to the business.
The last two earnings prints each produced a roughly 3% drop on the day and extended to about a 2.5–3.5% decline over the following week — a consistent but contained pattern. Next results are not due until July 28. Until then, the dynamic worth watching is whether the elevated options defensiveness resolves or deepens as the stock navigates a period where analyst targets continue to drift lower despite a valuation that looks genuinely cheap by most measures.
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