HealthEquity heads into its June 2 earnings print with options traders making their most aggressively bullish bet of the past year.
The sharpest signal in the data is the put/call ratio, which collapsed to 0.32 on Friday — nearly three standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.65. That is close to the lowest reading of the past 52 weeks and represents a full reversal from the defensive posture that dominated options positioning through April and early May. Over that prior period, the PCR ran consistently above 0.67. The two-day drop to 0.30–0.32 is abrupt enough to read as deliberate positioning ahead of Tuesday's release. Short interest adds little drama: 5.4% of the float is short, down roughly 4% on the week after spiking above 5% in mid-May. Borrow availability is extraordinarily loose at 1,719% — far more shares available than currently borrowed — and the cost to borrow is a negligible 0.39%. There is no short-squeeze setup here.
The analyst community is tilting constructive. RBC Capital raised its price target to $108 from $100 on Friday, maintaining an Outperform rating. That follows BMO Capital's upgrade to Outperform in April, when it also lifted its target from $85 to $105. The Street's mean target now sits at $114.56, roughly 30% above the current price of $87.99 — a meaningful gap that reflects the market's continued skepticism about the pace of recovery after the stock's sharp de-rating earlier in the year. Deutsche Bank carries the most optimistic target at $128. The one outlier is Goldman Sachs, which downgraded to Sell in January with a $89 target — almost exactly where the stock trades today, suggesting its thesis has largely played out. Bulls argue the HSA market's structural growth, raised EBITDA guidance, and improving adjusted net income make the current level attractive. Bears counter that per-account service fees are declining even as total accounts grow, and that elevated security costs are structurally compressing service margins — a pressure management itself has flagged for the full year.
The company's most recent quarterly revenue grew 15% year-on-year to $331 million, with an EBITDA margin of 37%. The P/E on trailing earnings looks elevated at approximately 18x — but the trailing EPS base is depressed by security investment costs. Operating cash flow of $65 million in the quarter and a current ratio above 4x point to a healthy balance sheet, with net debt of $819 million sitting at a manageable 1.6x EBITDA. The stock has gained 8% over the past month but slipped 2.8% on Friday, pulling back from the week's opening levels. The last two prints produced modest next-day gains of around 1.2–1.7%, suggesting the stock has historically reacted quietly to results.
The June 2 print will test whether the sharp options-market pivot to bullish reflects conviction in improving unit economics — or simply pre-earnings call-buying ahead of a guidance update that may not close the gap to analyst targets.
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