Mizuho Upgrade Meets a Week of Heavy Selling for Par Pacific

Short sellers have been quietly reducing exposure, not pressing it. Short interest fell 14% over the past month, settling at 7.5% of free float — down from a local peak above 8.7% in mid-April. The borrow market offers no drama to speak of: the cost to borrow is a near-frictionless 0.42%, and availability is extraordinarily loose at over 1,400% of short interest. That means for every share currently borrowed short, roughly 14 more are sitting available in the lending pool. With the ORTEX short score easing to 43.8 — its lowest level in the recent history window — the short side looks like it is winding down rather than building a fresh case. Options traders have shifted a touch more cautious this week, with the put/call ratio climbing to 0.33, about 1.5 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.27. That's a mild hedge, not a panic — and the 52-week high for the PCR is 0.91, so there is plenty of headroom before the options market reads as truly defensive.

The insider tape adds a note of caution that predates this week's weakness. CEO William Monteleone sold just over 108,000 shares in mid-March, collecting north of $5.8 million across several transactions when the stock was trading in the low-to-mid $50s. CFO Shawn Flores also sold around that time. Those sales came after a notable run-up, but the combined volume and the C-suite concentration of the selling is worth keeping in context, particularly with the stock now back near those same price levels. On a 90-day net basis, insiders recorded a large positive net share figure — explained almost entirely by share awards to directors in early April rather than open-market purchases, so the headline number flatters the picture somewhat.

The earnings reaction history matters here. The last print in early May landed with a -10% gap down the next day, extending to -12.5% over the subsequent five sessions. The prior quarter similarly delivered a negative one-day reaction, though a smaller one at -7.5%. The pattern is consistent: the stock has sold off after each of its last three results. The next event is scheduled for August 5.

Peers are broadly in the same boat this week: PBF fell the hardest among refiner comparables at -9.2%, while VLO shed 6.6% and DK lost 5.9%. The sector-wide pressure suggests macro and crack-spread concerns are doing most of the damage to PARR right now, rather than anything stock-specific. The question heading into the summer is whether the margin recovery that drove the analyst upgrade cycle — Montana and Washington crack spreads reportedly tripling in Q2 — is durable enough to close the gap between where the Street thinks the stock should be and where the market is currently willing to trade it.