FLEX has done something extraordinary in May. The stock is up 57% in a month — a gain that dwarfs almost anything else in the electronics manufacturing space. CEO Revathi Advaithi and COO Kwang Hooi Tan have responded by selling into the strength, and the options market has quietly shifted away from the hedging posture that defined April.
The insider selling this week is the loudest signal in the data. Advaithi sold over 83,000 shares across multiple tranches on May 22nd, raising roughly $10.9 million in a single session at prices around $129–$134. The COO followed with a $2.4 million sale on May 26th at $135.93. A director, Erin McSweeney, has been trimming steadily across three separate transactions this month. Net insider activity over the past 90 days totals more than $35 million in aggregate sales. These are not small plan-triggered clips — the CEO's May 22nd disposal alone was among the largest single-day insider sells the company has seen. The pattern is unambiguous: those closest to the business are using a 57% monthly move to reduce exposure.
The options picture tells a somewhat contrasting story. Put/call ratio has eased sharply to 1.45, more than a full standard deviation below its 20-day mean of 1.65 — and the contrast with April is stark. Throughout April the PCR ran above 1.9, touching its 52-week high of 2.10 on April 21st. That defensive hedging has largely unwound as the stock rallied. Today's reading of 1.45 is actually the most bullish options positioning of the past six weeks, which sits in some tension with the insider selling. The borrow market is utterly uncrowded: availability is at 4,708% — meaning there are roughly 47 shares available to borrow for every share currently shorted. Short interest itself has fallen by 24% over the past month to 1.7% of the free float, a level that carries essentially no squeeze risk and has been heading one way only as the rally unfolded.
The Street has scrambled to reprice. Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney doubled his target from $84 to $177 on May 8th while maintaining Buy — the most dramatic single revision. Barclays and Keybanc followed with similarly aggressive lifts, moving to $174 and $180 respectively. The consensus Buy rating is backed by seven analysts, with a mean target of $159 — currently about 11% below the stock's $143 close. That gap has compressed fast. The bull case rests on Flex's Agility segment momentum, raised FY2026 guidance to $26.5 billion in revenue, a record cash balance, and dominant positioning in the Data Center build-out. The bear case is narrower but real: the Reliability segment faces guided sequential revenue declines, gross margins remain thin at 9.4%, and the P/E has expanded to 26x on a trailing basis — steep relative to recent history for a contract manufacturer. EPS momentum factor scores rank in the 91st–95th percentile of the universe, giving bulls a firm earnings-revision tailwind. But the analyst rec differential score of 98th percentile and the 91% forward EPS growth rank suggest the good news is already well-reflected in positioning.
Close peer JBL gained 12.3% on the week and KN added 10.7%, so the electronics manufacturing complex broadly participated in this week's move. FLEX's 13.4% weekly gain outpaced both, which may explain why Corning (GLW) — another correlated name up 9.9% on the week — still hasn't fully closed the relative performance gap. The sector tailwind is real, but FLEX's return has been of a different magnitude.
The next hard date is July 22nd, when Flex reports Q1 FY2027 results. The earnings history contains an important data point: the May 6th print produced a 38% one-day gain and nearly 49% in five days — the catalyst for this entire rally. Whether the new $143 base reflects an accurate repricing or an overshoot is now the question the Street is debating. The $159 mean target implies the Street sees modest upside from current levels — but Keybanc's $180 ceiling and Goldman's $177 suggest there is still a range of views on where fair value ultimately settles.
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