GM Rallies 10% as Options Bulls Hit a One-Year High

GM enters the final stretch before its June 2 investor event riding a sharp reversal of fortune — the stock is up nearly 10% on the week and options traders are the most bullish they have been all year.

The standout signal this week is in options positioning. Call demand has overwhelmed puts to a degree not seen in the past twelve months. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.60, its lowest level over the full past year, and nearly 1.7 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.67. That is a notable departure from where the ratio was trading in April, when it hovered around 0.75-0.78 amid tariff-driven macro anxiety. The shift points to a meaningful rotation toward upside positioning rather than defensive hedging.

Short sellers are not fighting the tape. Short interest has eased to around 2.1% of the free float — a low absolute level — and trimmed roughly 5% over the week. Borrowing conditions are essentially frictionless, with availability in the lending market deep and wide. Cost to borrow has ticked up to 0.37% from under 0.15% a week ago, a notable percentage jump in relative terms, but still negligible in absolute cost. Nothing in the lending data suggests a meaningful short buildup; bears are retreating, not regrouping.

The Street remains constructively positioned. The analyst consensus leans firmly bullish, with multiple firms holding Outperform or Buy ratings and a mean price target around $94 — roughly 18% above the current $79.79. TD Cowen stands out among recent actions, lifting its target to $126 and reiterating Buy after the Q1 report in late April. Wells Fargo remains the lone notable dissenter, maintaining Underweight with a $59 target. Evercore ISI also lifted its target to $100 in early May, keeping Outperform. The spread between the most bullish ($126) and the bear ($59) is wide, reflecting genuine disagreement about how GM navigates the EV transition and tariff headwinds.

Valuations remain inexpensive relative to earnings power. The trailing P/E is near 6x on the snapshot data — well below the broader market — though the LTM figure from fundamentals data runs higher at roughly 28x depending on the earnings base used. At a P/B of just over 1.0 and an EV/EBITDA near 7.5x, the stock is priced for a company running a deeply cyclical, capital-heavy business, not one with the EPS momentum profile GM is currently showing. The factor scorecard underscores that tension: the forward EPS estimate growth ranking is in the 88th percentile, 30-day EPS momentum in the 83rd percentile, and the dividend score in the 96th percentile — yet the EV/EBIT metric sits in only the 40th percentile, suggesting the market has not fully re-rated the earnings quality story.

Institutional holders are broadly stable. BlackRock holds over 9% and added modestly in the most recent reporting period. Putnam added roughly 2.5 million shares to bring its stake to 3.3% of shares. AQR added nearly 2.9 million shares as of March 31. No top-ten holder made a dramatic cut. That steady accumulation from diversified institutional managers provides a reasonably firm floor under the register.

Peer F has been even more dramatic this week, surging nearly 18% — outpacing GM's already strong 10% gain. European names like VOW3 and BMW moved more modestly, up 3% and 1.5% respectively. The gap in performance between the US names and their European counterparts suggests the week's move was driven at least partly by US-specific tailwinds — likely the ongoing tariff relief narrative — rather than a broad global autos re-rating.

The June 2 investor event is the next focal point. The most recent prior earnings print, on April 28, produced a mild -1.7% one-day move despite the company beating estimates and raising guidance. Whatever the event on June 2 brings, the current options setup — sitting at the year's most bullish extreme — means any disappointment would face a more extended unwind of call positioning than usual.