GOOGL enters the final stretch before its June 5 earnings date in a position that has barely changed since last week's note — short sellers are retreating, analysts are nudging targets higher, and the borrow market remains as loose as it gets.
The single most concrete development this week is in cost to borrow. It has jumped 23% over the past week to 0.34% — still historically cheap, but the sharpest seven-day move in over a month. That number remains well within the "easy borrow" category, and availability is effectively unlimited, with over 5.7 billion shares available to lend. Nothing in the lending market signals crowding or squeeze pressure. Short interest has continued its slow march lower, now at 1.29% of free float — down nearly 6% over the past month — keeping the positioning picture at multi-year lows. The ORTEX short score of 30.5 has been essentially flat for two weeks, confirming no fresh conviction on the short side.
Options positioning is equally unremarkable — and that itself is the story. The put/call ratio is 0.844, fractionally above its 20-day average of 0.843, with a z-score near zero. Defensive hedging is not building ahead of the June event. At its most cautious over the past year, the PCR reached 0.91; the current reading is nowhere near that level. For a stock up 13% in the past month and approaching a near-term catalyst, the absence of options anxiety is notable.
The Street has spent the past week consolidating its constructive view rather than adding to it. Wells Fargo nudged its target up to $435 from $427 on May 20. Rosenblatt and Keybanc held their targets unchanged at $393 and $425 respectively. The mean target across analysts now sits at $431 — representing roughly 11% upside from the current $388.88 close. Most of the larger target raises happened earlier in the month, post-earnings, with Citizens lifting its target to $515 and Mizuho moving to $460. The bull case centres on AI monetisation through Search and Cloud, along with the Gemini platform gaining traction. Bears point to advertising concentration risk and regulatory exposure. The factor picture reinforces the constructive tilt: EPS momentum scores in the 91st percentile on a 30-day basis, and EPS surprise ranks in the 81st percentile — Alphabet has been consistently delivering above expectations.
Institutional ownership data adds little drama. BlackRock added roughly 8.5 million shares in April, and JP Morgan Asset Management added 10.4 million — passive-flow additions consistent with index weight changes rather than active conviction. Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page remain the second- and fifth-largest holders, with no reported changes. Insider activity in the snapshot is stale — all disclosed trades date to February — and too small to carry any signal.
The last earnings print on April 29 produced a 10% single-day gain and a 14% five-day move. The one before that was essentially flat on day one. What to watch going into June 5 is whether Cloud revenue growth holds the pace that justified April's re-rating, and whether the AI commentary from management adds anything beyond the monetisation narrative the Street has already priced in.
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