Boston Scientific heads into the summer with a notable divide: directors bought the stock on the dip last week while short sellers have quietly doubled their position over the past month.
The insider angle is the standout. Three directors — David Habiger, Cheryl Pegus, and Lead Independent Director Edward Ludwig — all made open-market purchases on May 19 and 20, buying into a stock that had fallen roughly 7% over the prior month to around $56. Combined, the three transactions totalled approximately $554,000. These were discretionary buys, not awards or plan-driven trades. The net insider position over the past 90 days is modestly positive at around $689,000. That's not a thunderclap signal, but the clustering of three board-level purchases in two days, right near the lows, is worth registering.
Short interest tells a different story. It has risen sharply — up roughly 47% over the past month to 2.3% of the float. That's still a low absolute level, but the pace of the build is notable. From a dormant base of around 1.7% in early May, estimates pushed through 2.4% mid-month before settling back toward 2.3% as of May 26. The lending market offers no friction to this build: availability is extraordinarily loose at nearly 2,850%, meaning there are roughly 28 shares available to borrow for every one currently shorted. Borrowing costs remain near rock-bottom at 0.45% annualised, barely changed week-on-week. The short score has edged up to 32.1 from 30.1 a fortnight ago — still far from extreme territory, but the direction of travel is upward.
Options positioning, by contrast, is leaning bullish. The put/call ratio at 0.37 is running well below its 20-day average of 0.41, and below its 52-week low of 0.31. That's a meaningful shift from late April and early May, when the PCR spent several sessions above 0.55 as investors hedged into the Q1 earnings release. Since that print — which saw BSX jump 10.4% on the day — protection demand has evaporated and call activity has dominated.
The Street remains broadly bullish but has been trimming its optimism. B of A Securities was the most dramatic, cutting its target from $105 to $68 on May 18 while keeping a Buy. Baird moved its target from $78 to $75 the following day. The wider recent changes trend almost entirely negative — no upgrades, a wave of target cuts, though ratings held firm across Buy and Outperform. The consensus mean price target sits near $83, which implies roughly 44% upside to the current price of $57.64. That gap is wide, suggesting the Street has not yet fully recalibrated to the post-correction share price level. Valuation remains undemanding relative to history: EV/EBITDA is around 13.9x, while the PE sits near 16x on current reported earnings. The bull case rests on AFib market expansion — from $9 billion to $15 billion by 2028 — and Boston Scientific's position in catheter ablation and LAAC. Bears point to RF and cryo market share erosion and a crowded competitive field for newer products.
Among correlated peers, EW gained 6.3% on the week and IRTC added 3.2%. MDT was roughly flat, up 0.4%. BSX's 1.5% weekly gain sits in the middle of the pack — neither leading nor lagging meaningfully.
The next scheduled earnings event is July 29. Between now and then, the key things to watch are whether the short build continues at pace, whether analyst targets converge toward the stock's current price level, and whether the insider buying cluster near $56 attracts further board-level participation.
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