DY delivered one of the cleanest beat-and-raise prints in infrastructure services this cycle, and the market answered with a 26% single-day gain to $529.
The stock's move left short sellers badly offside. Short interest had climbed 28% over the prior month to 6.1% of free float — bears were adding into the print, not retreating from it. With the stock now trading well above every analyst price target on record (the Street consensus stood at $500 before the gap), those positions face a difficult recalibration. Despite that squeeze pressure, the borrow market shows no stress. Availability remains exceptionally loose at roughly 1,500% — fifteen shares available for every one shorted — and cost to borrow is still just 0.45%. Short sellers who want to exit face no friction in doing so. The options market, meanwhile, offered little warning: the put/call ratio was running at 0.47, barely above its 20-day average of 0.45 and well toward the bullish end of its 52-week range. Hedgers were not positioned for a down move.
The bull case is now partly validated. Q1 FY2027 adjusted EPS of $4.42 beat the $4.10 consensus. Revenue of $1.964 billion came in nearly $300 million above estimates. Full-year sales guidance was raised to $7.38–$7.65 billion, itself ahead of the prior Street forecast of $7.05 billion. Bears had centered their concern on customer concentration and labor availability risks — the kind of execution risks that are hard to disprove in any single quarter. Bulls had pointed to telecommunications infrastructure buildout, data center connectivity, and the Power Solutions acquisition as multi-year growth levers. The quarter landed squarely on the bull side of that debate. Analyst targets now look stale: JPMorgan's $415 and B of A's $475 — both raised in early March — are already below where the stock opened on earnings day.
Peers moved in a narrower range. FIX rose 3% on the day and MTZ gained 2.3%, while MYRG added nearly 4%. IESC led the group with a 5.6% gain. None matched DY's magnitude, confirming this was a company-specific reaction rather than a sector re-rating.
The question the next few weeks will test is whether analysts can reset price targets fast enough to keep pace with the stock — and whether the short sellers who built positions into a blowout quarter choose to defend, cover, or wait for a fade that the borrow market gives them every opportunity to pursue.
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