CACI International heads into this stretch with short sellers adding at a pace not seen in years, even as the stock holds above $490 and the lending market remains wide open.
Short interest has almost doubled in a month. It now stands at 7.2% of the free float — up from 4.1% on April 22 and nearly double the 4.7% reading from the start of May. In raw terms, estimated short shares climbed 12% in the past week alone and are up 49% over the past month. That is a sharp and sustained build, not a one-session blip. The rate of accumulation since late April is the most aggressive move in the 30-day history available, and it has accelerated through the second and third weeks of May.
The lending market tells a contrasting story. Availability is ample — roughly six shares remain available to borrow for every one already out on loan, with 16 million shares in the pool. That is well off the year's tightest reading and gives short sellers plenty of room to add without any friction. Cost to borrow is effectively flat at 0.48%, barely changed from a month ago. The short build is a demand story, not a supply squeeze — there is no mechanical pressure pulling it back. Options positioning has shifted alongside: the put/call ratio moved to 0.79 on Tuesday, more than 2.5 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.54. That is the most defensive options setup CACI has seen in months, suggesting the hedging demand is broader than just the short book.
The Street's picture is more nuanced than the positioning data implies. Analyst consensus remains constructive in aggregate — the mean price target is $692, roughly 40% above the current price, and the majority of recent coverage sits at Buy or Overweight. Wells Fargo initiated at Overweight with a $725 target in April. JPMorgan raised its target to $700 in February. But the more recent direction has been downward: Citigroup trimmed its target to $555 this week while keeping a Neutral rating, and TD Cowen cut from $650 to $625 after Q2 results. The gap between the price at $493 and those trimmed targets has narrowed considerably. Bulls point to a strong free cash flow trajectory — $281 million year-to-date — and raised fiscal 2026 revenue guidance of $9.3–$9.5 billion, implying 8–10% year-over-year growth. Bears counter with a book-to-bill of just 0.6x last quarter and a declining funded backlog of $4.4 billion, raising questions about whether the revenue guide is fully supported by visible orders. On multiples, the PE ratio has compressed about a full turn over the past month to 16.8x — cheap for a government IT contractor with this cash profile, but the compression reflects real uncertainty around the federal contracting environment.
Institutional ownership looks broadly stable. BlackRock added roughly 62,000 shares through April, keeping its position above 9% of shares outstanding. Wellington added 167,000 shares in Q1. Victory Capital added a notable 478,000 shares. The biggest mover in the other direction was Eaton Vance, which trimmed by 199,000 shares. Overall the ownership base looks anchored, which makes the short build more notable — new selling pressure is coming from outside the core holders.
The Q2 earnings release on April 22–23 produced a modest 1–2% day-one gain, but the five-day reaction was slightly negative at -3%, suggesting the raised guidance was partly offset by the book-to-bill disappointment. There is no next earnings date confirmed in the snapshot yet.
The key things to watch are whether short interest continues to build toward the year's prior peak of 24.5% utilization, whether the book-to-bill recovers in the next print, and whether the gap between trimmed analyst targets and the stock price narrows or widens further as the federal budget picture develops.
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