RDDT enters the week of May 18 with a familiar tension: the stock is up 1.7% on the week but still down 5.4% over the past month, options traders have quietly turned more bullish, and CEO Steve Huffman sold another $2.8 million of stock on May 15 — the second consecutive wave of selling in two weeks.
The clearest shift in positioning this week is in options. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.79, roughly 1.6 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.82 — the most call-heavy reading in several weeks. That marks a notable rotation away from the defensive posture that characterized late April and early May, when the PCR was running consistently above 0.83. Short interest reinforces the picture of a market leaning less bearish. SI has ticked up marginally this week — from 15.98 million to 16.18 million shares, or about 11.7% of the free float — but that follows a sharp compression from the 17-18 million share range seen in early May. Borrow costs have eased further to 0.41%, down from 0.48% a week ago, and availability remains extremely loose at 845%, meaning there is no meaningful constraint on new short supply. The lending market is not set up for a squeeze.
The Street remains constructively positioned, but with calibrated targets. Following the April 30 earnings beat — which sent the stock up nearly 13% in a single session — the majority of analysts raised price targets. The moves were concentrated in the positive direction: Evercore ISI lifted to $300, Needham held at $300, Piper Sandler moved to $215, and even Goldman Sachs, which carries a Neutral rating, moved to $180 from $206 in April before partially reversing that cut. The mean target across the 21 covering analysts runs near $225 — implying roughly 45% upside from current levels. Bulls point to Reddit's community-driven moat, AI data licensing partnerships, and a track record of beating estimates — EPS momentum ranks in the 84th percentile on a 30-day basis. Bears focus on a forward earnings growth estimate that ranks in just the 21st percentile year-on-year, elevated valuation (PE near 20x, EV/EBITDA at 17x), and the risk that AI assistants divert traffic from the platform over time.
The institutional holder list has seen some notable movement. Baillie Gifford added 1.33 million shares in the latest filing, and AllianceBernstein added 1.76 million — both active growth-oriented managers adding meaningfully. Viking Global initiated a 2.55 million share position. Against that, Tiger Global cut its stake by 1.34 million shares, and Marshall Wace added 1.3 million in what is likely a tactical position given the firm's hedge fund profile. The most visible signal, however, remains CEO Steve Huffman. On May 15, Huffman sold approximately 18,000 shares across six tranches at prices between $154 and $159, raising roughly $2.8 million — coming just ten days after selling a further 2,800 shares at $169-$177. His total holding, last reported on May 5, has fallen by 411,000 shares from the prior filing. The sales are spread across multiple tranches at different prices, consistent with a structured 10b5-1 plan, but the cadence is visible against a stock that has lost ground from its post-earnings highs.
The next earnings event is June 8. The most recent print on April 30 produced a 12.7% next-day gain and a 10.9% five-day gain — the clearest data point in the reaction history. With RDDT's closest peers diverging this week — PINS fell 8.4% while SNAP was flat — the key question heading into June is whether the platform's monetization trajectory can sustain another beat, or whether the stock's 31% year-to-date decline reflects a fundamental reassessment of the growth narrative rather than temporary noise.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open RDDT 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.
