Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings exits the week with its most striking data point sitting in the insider register: the CEO just bought $2.5 million of stock in the open market, capping a month of board-level accumulation that has now accelerated into senior management.
The insider story has evolved materially since last week's note. CEO John Chidsey purchased 153,000 shares on May 22 at $16.37, a $2.5 million open-market buy that goes well beyond the director-level purchases flagged previously. That follows Director Jonathan Cohen adding 30,000 shares on May 20 at $15.83. Combined with the earlier cluster of board buys in early-to-mid May, net insider buying over the past 90 days has reached roughly 453,000 shares worth approximately $9.1 million. A CEO deploying that kind of personal capital after weeks of director-level buying is a different signal than a board accumulating quietly — it names a conviction.
Short sellers have not retreated despite the stock's 15.6% weekly gain. Short interest climbed further to 15.0% of the free float, up about 4 percentage points over the past month and now running near the highest level in the recent data window. That said, the lending market is not signalling stress. Availability is ample at 222% — meaning more than two shares remain available to borrow for every share already shorted — and cost to borrow is just 0.42%, barely changed on the week. The borrow is easy and cheap. Bears are adding exposure freely, not fighting a squeeze. The ORTEX short score has drifted higher across the week, closing at 62.2, up from 57.6 two weeks ago — a creeping move that reflects growing short-side conviction rather than a sudden repositioning.
Options positioning sits slightly above its recent baseline without flashing alarm. The put/call ratio is 0.79, just under one standard deviation above its 20-day mean of 0.75. That is a modest tilt toward caution — not the kind of defensive hedging that typically precedes earnings — and notably mild given how far the stock has moved in a week. Call buyers, not put buyers, are arguably the more interesting story given that the 52-week high on the PCR is 1.25; by that measure, the options market is far from maximum fear.
The Street has been in target-cutting mode, but ratings have held. Over the past two weeks, Wells Fargo trimmed its target to $19 while keeping Overweight, Truist cut from $25 to $20 but kept Buy, and UBS lowered to $17 maintaining Neutral. The consensus mean price target now sits at $20.76, which at the current price of $17.10 implies about 21% upside according to the aggregate. That gap has compressed from where it was a month ago, as targets have been reset post-earnings — NCLH fell nearly 10% on May 4 after its Q1 print and dropped a further 7% over the following five days. The most recent earnings history reinforces that the stock tends to move sharply around results; the next event is August 3. On valuation, the EV/EBITDA multiple has expanded modestly to 8.6x, up roughly 0.75 turns over the past 30 days as the stock recovered. EPS momentum scores remain weak at the 10th percentile over both 30- and 90-day windows, but EPS surprise ranks at the 85th percentile, meaning the company has been beating lowered expectations consistently.
The Elliott Management position — 13.2 million shares, a full 2.9% of the company, added entirely in the most recent filing period — adds another layer to the insider/ownership picture. With an activist on the register, a CEO buying aggressively, and short sellers continuing to press, the divergence between those two camps is the defining tension in the name. The August 3 earnings release will be the next hard test of which side has called the setup correctly.
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