Chord Energy heads into the final days of May with options traders their most cautious in months — and the stock down 7.9% on the week to $137.86.
The clearest signal right now is in options positioning. The put/call ratio jumped to 0.63 on Tuesday, more than two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.47. That is the most defensive reading in at least a month and a marked shift from mid-May, when the PCR was running comfortably below 0.50. It is not at year-long extremes — the 52-week high is 1.55 — but the speed of the move is notable. Options traders are paying up for downside protection just as the stock pulls back through mid-month levels.
Short interest tells a less aggressive story. At roughly 4.9% of free float, it is a meaningful but not extreme position. More striking is the recent direction: short interest has fallen nearly 19% over the past month, and a sharp one-day drop of 5.6% on May 26 left the position at its lightest in several weeks. A temporary spike around May 19-20 — when short interest briefly climbed above 4.3 million shares — reversed just as quickly. The borrow market is very loose. Availability has actually expanded sharply this week to over 1,600% of current short interest, the highest level in months, meaning there is no shortage of shares for new shorts if sentiment sours further. Borrowing costs remain low at 0.40% — down 16% on the week — signalling no stress in the lending market. The ORTEX short score of 39 is below the midpoint, consistent with a market that is not particularly bearish on the name.
The Street remains constructively positioned, though targets are compressing toward current levels. Morgan Stanley raised its target to $175 this week (from $168), maintaining Overweight. Mizuho followed the same day with a raise to $175 from $164, also staying Outperform. Both moves were made into a stock that had already pulled back, suggesting the analysts view the weakness as noise rather than signal. The consensus mean target of $172.75 implies roughly 25% upside from current prices. Valuation stays undemanding: the stock trades at 7.4x trailing earnings and 3.0x EV/EBITDA, with the EV/EBITDA multiple compressing slightly over the past month. Bulls point to Chord's low unit cost structure in the Williston Basin — averaging around $18,800 per adjusted barrel of oil equivalent added over the past seven quarters — and the potential for further M&A-driven value creation. Bears flag the single-basin concentration risk and a production trough expected in 2026, compounded by weather-related cost pressure.
Institutional ownership reinforces the bullish lean. BlackRock added over 1.3 million shares in the latest reported period to hold 12.3% of the company. Invesco built a position of roughly 2.1 million shares. Vanguard entities collectively account for nearly 10% of outstanding shares. The insider picture is less supportive: recent transactions have been exclusively sales, with director Douglas Brooks selling 8,000 shares across three transactions in early May and COO Darrin Henke trimming on May 15. Net insider activity over the past 90 days shows a modest net sell. None of the individual transactions are large in absolute terms relative to the company's capitalisation, but the consistent one-directional flow is worth noting.
The peer tape adds context. MTDR fell 11.6% on the week and DVN dropped 9.1%, making Chord's 7.9% decline look relatively contained within a broad E&P selloff. OVV and APA lost 5.9% and 6.6% respectively. The common thread is oil price pressure pulling the sector lower simultaneously.
The next scheduled earnings event is August 5. The prior two prints both saw the stock fall on the day — down 7.6% after the May 6 release and 5.6% the session before it. With options now skewed toward puts and the stock still carrying a 25% gap to consensus targets, the key question heading into summer is whether energy prices stabilise enough to validate what analysts raised their numbers to this week.
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