Viavi Solutions has reversed course sharply, climbing back to $53.79 — nearly recapturing the exact prices at which insiders were selling just three weeks ago.
The price recovery is the week's central tension. Last week's note flagged how CEO Oleg Khaykin and a cluster of colleagues sold aggressively into the post-earnings strength, collecting roughly $21 million between $51 and $55. The stock then slid toward $49. Now it has bounced 9.2% on the week and 8.6% on the day, closing Tuesday back in the middle of that insider-sale range. The supply that insiders placed into the market has been absorbed. Whether the stock can push meaningfully above those levels is now the live question.
Short sellers have been retreating steadily throughout this recovery. Short interest has dropped 31% over the past month — from around 18 million shares in mid-April to just over 11.3 million now, or approximately 5.1% of the free float. The weekly decline is 5.7%. Borrowing costs remain negligible at 0.50%, and availability is extremely loose at 928% of short interest — meaning roughly nine shares are available to borrow for every one currently lent out. There is no squeeze pressure here, and no sign of forced covering. The short-side retreat looks orderly and deliberate, not distressed. The ORTEX short score has eased from above 40 earlier this month to 38.5, a modest but consistent drift lower.
Options positioning is not sending a strong directional signal. The put/call ratio is running at 0.46, just slightly above its 20-day average of 0.44. The z-score is only 0.52, and the PCR is well below its 52-week high of 0.52 reached just two weeks ago on May 15. Call-side interest continues to dominate. That tilt toward calls is broadly consistent with the tone since the earnings pop — options traders have not moved to hedge aggressively into the rebound, which reinforces the constructive price tone.
The Street caught up aggressively after the April 30 earnings release. UBS raised its target from $25 to $60 while keeping a Neutral rating. Susquehanna lifted from $25 to $65 on a Positive. Needham went to $68 on a Buy. All three actions came on the same day. The mean analyst target now stands at $64.43, implying roughly 20% upside from current levels — a realistic gap rather than a stale legacy figure. The bull case centres on Viavi's positioning in 3D sensing, AI data centre infrastructure, and aerospace-defence. Bears point to supply-chain costs, seasonal telecom weakness, and a valuation that has stretched materially: the price-to-earnings multiple is running near 50x, and the EV/EBITDA is above 32x. The factor score on EV/EBIT is in the 5th percentile — close to the most expensive end of the universe.
Institutional ownership data adds a layer of interest. BlackRock added nearly 2 million shares to reach 14.4% of the company as of April 30. Invesco added 3.6 million shares. T. Rowe Price added 9 million shares as of March 31, building a 7.8% stake. Vanguard disclosed a new 7.2% position. That cluster of institutional accumulation — much of it reported after the earnings catalyst — is a notable counterweight to the insider selling that dominated the earlier narrative.
Close peer CIEN gained 14.8% on the week, and HLIT surged 35.4%, suggesting a broader lift across networking and communications infrastructure names rather than a VIAV-specific move. LITE was the laggard, gaining just 2.9%. VIAV's 9.2% weekly move places it in the middle of this peer group — not an outlier, but tracking the sector's momentum.
The next scheduled earnings event is August 6. Between now and then, the key watch is whether institutional accumulation continues to absorb any residual insider-related supply — and whether the stock can sustain above the $53–$55 band where insiders chose to exit.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open VIAV 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.
