Tempus AI reports today with the defensive signals noted yesterday still firmly in place — and a CEO who has been selling into them.
The options picture has eased fractionally from Tuesday's 52-week high but remains near the most defensive level of the past year. The put/call ratio pulled back to 0.662 from 0.676, yet that still puts it more than two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.51. The two-day spike from the mid-0.47 range that ran through most of April was not a gradual drift — it was a sharp repositioning, and it has not unwound. Borrow availability has tightened to 28%, down from 49% just ten days ago. That is the tightest it has been since late April, meaning the lending market is increasingly constrained even as short interest itself — at 15.4% of free float — has barely moved on the week.
The insider signal cuts in one direction only. CEO Eric Lefkofsky sold roughly $8.5 million worth of shares on April 28, when the stock was trading near $51. The stock has since fallen to $45.88, down nearly 18% over the past month. Lefkofsky retains a dominant 23.4% stake, so these are partial sales, not an exit — but the timing, at prices well above current levels, adds a layer of caution that is hard to dismiss heading into the print.
The analyst community is broadly constructive but has been trimming expectations. HC Wainwright cut its target from $95 to $64 on May 11. BTIG followed from $90 to $80 on May 8. TD Cowen bucked the trend with a small raise to $68. The mean target is $67.20 — roughly 46% above the current price — which reflects the bull case: Tempus as a high-growth AI-driven genomics and data platform with strong partnership momentum and a large addressable market. Jefferies took the other side in April, initiating at Underperform with a $35 target, flagging regulatory risk around laboratory-developed tests, competitive pressure, and the company's persistent cash burn. EV/EBITDA near 95x and a deeply negative P/E leave little room for execution misses. The most recent earnings event, in early May, produced a one-day drop of 4.1% and a five-day decline of nearly 16%.
That prior reaction sits at the centre of what today's print will test: whether Tempus can show enough progress on revenue growth and cash management to justify a valuation that has already been cut sharply, or whether another guidance miss pushes the heavily shorted, tightly borrowed stock closer to the bear case that Jefferies has now put in writing.
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