Daktronics heads into the final days of April with an unusual split: short interest has been climbing steadily for six weeks, yet options traders are positioned as bullishly as they've been all year.
The short side has been quietly adding pressure since mid-March. SI as a percentage of the free float has risen from 3.7% on March 18 to 4.9% by April 28 — a 31% increase in under six weeks. The weekly pace has picked up too: shorts grew 8% in the most recent week alone, and are up roughly 21% over the past month. That's a sustained, methodical build rather than a sudden catalyst-driven spike. The ORTEX short score has edged up to 43.4, its highest reading in the 10-day window tracked here, though still in a moderate range overall.
The borrow market, however, does not yet reflect stress. Availability remains generous — lending conditions have actually eased over the past month, with the cost to borrow falling around 22% to 0.43%, one of the cheaper rates in the recent history shown here. The borrow market is telling shorts they face no meaningful friction at current levels, which may partly explain why the build has continued at a measured pace without triggering a squeeze. The 52-week high on lending tightness was nearly double today's level, and there is no sign the market is approaching that kind of constraint.
Options positioning cuts directly against the short narrative. The put/call ratio has collapsed to near its 52-week low — 0.0049 versus a 20-day average of 0.024 — running about 1.3 standard deviations below the recent mean. That puts call activity overwhelmingly dominant in the options market right now. The contrast with the short-interest trend is sharp: while shorts accumulate, options traders are buying calls, not hedging downside. One angle could be that large holders are selling calls against long positions, which would mechanically depress the PCR without necessarily reflecting directional bullishness — but the direction of the ratio is still notable.
On the Street, analyst coverage is thin and the most recent price target of $33 (from Craig-Hallum's January 2025 initiation at Buy) represents meaningful upside from the current $19.04 close, but the data is over 14 months old and should not be taken as a live consensus. Earlier earnings reactions have been negative — the stock fell nearly 2% the day after the April 9 print and 7–8% after each of the two March events, with 5-day moves also negative. That consistent post-earnings weakness gives context to the short build: shorts may be positioning for an analogous reaction ahead of the next scheduled event on June 24.
Institutionally, the register is tightly held. Alta Fox Capital, Vanguard, and BlackRock are the three largest holders at roughly 7.7%, 6.8%, and 6.7% of shares respectively. Alta Fox trimmed nearly 700,000 shares in the December quarter, while Duquesne Family Office cut almost 584,000. Insider activity through early March was predominantly stock awards and routine tax-related sells — small in scale and low in significance. The net insider position over 90 days is a modest positive, but the individual transactions carry minimal weight.
The next earnings release on June 24 is the clearest pivot point. Whether the short build continues at its current pace, and whether the PCR reverts toward its historical average, will define the setup into that date.
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