Global Payments is sending mixed signals. Short sellers covered aggressively this week. Options traders responded by hedging harder. Analysts, meanwhile, have spent the past two months cutting targets.
SI fell 14% in one week to 6.03% of float — erasing the prior month's buildup in a single move. That's roughly 2 million shares covered since May 22.
The options market isn't reading that as a clean-up signal. The put-call ratio hit 0.57 on May 27, up from a 20-day mean of 0.49. The z-score of 2.09 puts this move in the top 3% of daily PCR readings over the trailing period. Hedging demand rose even as the directional short bet shrank.
The borrow market shows no distress. Availability sits at 563% — more than five shares available to lend for every one already borrowed. Cost to borrow is 0.51%. Neither metric suggests any squeeze dynamic is building.
Five price target cuts have landed since early April. Truist Securities lowered its target to $76 (from $81) on May 19. Cantor Fitzgerald cut to $76 (from $88) on May 11. Stephens cut to $80 (from $90) on May 7. The mean analyst target stands at $94.92 — a 29% premium to the current $73.46 close — but that gap reflects stale high targets, not fresh conviction.
Raymond James downgraded to Market Perform in March. No firm has upgraded since.
The bull case rests on second-half revenue acceleration, easing customer renewal cycles, and $200M in targeted revenue synergies. The bear case centres on 1% year-on-year net revenue growth, EvoSynergies delays, and FX drag.
GTCR holds 15.8% of shares outstanding — a strategic anchor. Citadel added 3.8 million shares in Q1, reaching a 1.87% stake. Columbia Management added 507,000 shares. Synovus trimmed 494,000. Net institutional flow is modestly constructive, but concentration in GTCR means any signal from that holder matters disproportionately.
The ORTEX short score sits at 51.3, effectively neutral and little changed over the past week.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open GPN on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
