JCI Heads Into June Print With Bears Notably Absent

Johnson Controls International reports its next set of results on June 1, and the most striking feature of the pre-earnings setup is how little conviction bears are showing against a stock that has pulled back 5% over the past month.

Short interest is low and not building any meaningful pressure. At 1.4% of the free float — roughly 8.8 million shares — it has risen 22% over the past month in share terms, but that move lifts it from negligible to merely small. Borrow costs remain near the floor at 0.53%, and availability is effectively unlimited, with the lending pool nowhere near strained. The ORTEX short score of 30 places JCI comfortably in the lower half of the short-conviction spectrum. Options positioning is similarly calm: the put/call ratio of 1.06 is essentially flat against its 20-day average of 1.06, with a z-score barely above zero. There is no detectable hedging buildup heading into the print.

The debate, such as it is, sits squarely with the bulls and how much further they think the re-rating can run. After the May 6 earnings beat — organic sales grew 6% against a 4.2% consensus estimate — the Street lifted targets across the board, with UBS moving highest at $170 (Buy) and Wells Fargo at $160 (Overweight). RBC and Citigroup raised targets too but kept more cautious ratings, and an RBC reiteration at $154 two days ago with no change reads as the Street pausing rather than pushing. The mean target now runs at $150.85, just 10.8% above the current price of $136.15 — a narrower gap than the post-earnings enthusiasm implied. BNP Paribas initiated at Underperform with a $120 target in April, flagging sub-100% FCF conversion, margin stagnation, and what it characterised as seven years of limited earnings growth. That bear case is the main counterweight to the bull narrative of accelerating commercial HVAC demand, decarbonisation tailwinds, and the SaaS segment margin expansion management highlighted last quarter.