Spire Global heads into its May 27 earnings print with short sellers sitting on a painful position — and options markets signalling that bulls, not bears, are in control.
Short interest in the satellite data company is elevated at 15.4% of the free float, with around 5 million shares borrowed against a stock that has climbed 44% in the past month, 24% in the past week alone, and 12% in just the last session. That combination — high short interest meeting an accelerating rally — is squeezing the borrow market. Availability has tightened to 71% relative to outstanding short interest, down sharply from above 100% a week ago, a sign that fresh borrowing capacity is being absorbed as the stock moves. Cost to borrow has eased to around 4.1% from highs near 10% in April, suggesting the acute squeeze pressure seen earlier in the year has partially cleared — but availability is trending in the wrong direction for short sellers as the print approaches.
Options positioning adds to the bullish lean. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.40, nearly 1.5 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.44 and close to its 52-week low of 0.37. That is not the profile of a market bracing for bad news — it reflects traders accumulating call exposure into the event, not reaching for downside protection.
The bull and bear cases are unusually stark. Bulls point to 44% year-over-year revenue growth (excluding the divested maritime business), growing defense and government demand for Spire's unique space-based datasets, and a trajectory toward 60–70% gross margins as the business scales. Analysts covering the stock have spent 2026 ratcheting targets higher — Canaccord Genuity raised to $22.50 and Stifel lifted to $22.00 as recently as May 14, both maintaining Buy ratings. The mean consensus target of $20.38 has already been surpassed by the current price of $23.75, which itself reflects how fast the stock has moved relative to analyst models. Bears counter with real concerns: Q4 revenues fell 27% year-over-year, free cash flow remains negative, and the company has disclosed a material weakness in financial reporting controls alongside high customer concentration risk.
One institutional signal worth watching is the CEO and founding chairman's recent activity. CEO Theresa Condor and founder Peter Platzer both sold shares on May 20 — a combined transaction across the entire C-suite, including the CFO and COO, all executed at around $19. The stock has since traded materially above those levels. While routine pre-scheduled sales cannot be ruled out, the cluster of executive selling at a price roughly 25% below today's close gives the ownership picture a complex texture heading into the release.
What the print will test is whether Spire's revenue trajectory — after a dislocating Q4 decline — has stabilized into the durable 30%-plus growth story that justifies a stock now trading well above even the most recently upgraded analyst targets.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open SPIR 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.
