Archer Aviation heads into the final week of May with options traders at their most bullish in at least a year — a sharp contrast to the still-elevated short book that has only slowly retreated.
The options picture is striking. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.19, the lowest reading in the past 52 weeks and nearly three standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.24. That is an unusually aggressive tilt toward calls. With the stock up 10% on the week to $6.51 and 14% over the past month, traders appear to be chasing the rally with upside exposure rather than hedging against further gains. The signal is worth noting for its extremity — the prior 52-week range ran from 0.19 to 0.52, meaning today's PCR is at the very floor of the range.
Short interest tells a more measured story. Shorts have been trimming: SI % of free float has eased to roughly 14.7% from a peak near 16.3% in late April, a gradual cover that coincides with the stock's recovery. The 30-day decline in estimated short shares is about 7.6%. Despite that, the position remains substantial at roughly 94 million shares. Borrow costs have fallen sharply — down 44% on the week to just 0.28% annualised — suggesting the lending market no longer considers ACHR a name worth paying up to short. Availability is running at around 68%, well within normal range and far from the tighter 47% level seen in late April. Short sellers are not being squeezed; they are simply stepping back.
The Street is broadly constructive but cautious on valuation. The analyst consensus clusters around Buy, with Canaccord and Needham both maintaining Buy ratings, though Canaccord trimmed its target to $12 in mid-May after the latest earnings print — the only recent change within a 14-day window. Goldman Sachs, which initiated coverage at Neutral with an $11 target in December, represents the cautious end of the range. The mean price target is around $10.61 against the current price of $6.51, implying roughly 63% implied upside on paper. The price-to-book multiple has re-rated noticeably, up about 0.51x over the past 30 days, reflecting the stock's recovery. Standard valuation metrics like P/E and EV/EBITDA are negative — the company is pre-revenue in any meaningful sense. The ORTEX short score is 67.6, ranking in the 4th percentile universe-wide, flagging this as one of the more heavily shorted names in the database.
Institutional ownership adds an interesting backdrop. Stellantis holds the largest external block at roughly 9.9% of shares, last adding 15 million shares in early January. State Street meaningfully added about 10.9 million shares through April, while ARK Investment Management holds nearly 5% and was adding incrementally. Morgan Stanley, by contrast, trimmed by 5.2 million shares in the March quarter. The insider flow this month has been modest sells — the CTO disposed of around $547k of stock on May 18, alongside smaller sales by the Acting CFO, General Counsel, and Chief Accounting Officer, all at ~$5.95 per share. These followed restricted stock awards issued on May 15. The sales are routine post-award disposals rather than directional signals; total insider net over 90 days is a marginal $2.98 million net bought.
The next earnings event is scheduled for June 26. The most recent print on May 11 produced a 1-day loss of about 1.4% and a 5-day decline of 8.6%. Peer names have moved sharply higher this week — AIRO rallied 16.5%, EVTL gained 12.3%, and EVEX added 11.5%, broadly in line with ACHR's own 10% advance. The sector-wide bid is notable; the question heading into June is whether the options optimism and short-cover flow continue, or whether the pre-earnings period reintroduces the hedging pressure that has been absent this week.
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