Enterprise Products Partners heads into the back end of April with its strongest weekly gain in months, a fresh post-earnings lift, and a notable unwind in bearish positioning — all against a backdrop of rising analyst targets and one of the best income profiles in the midstream sector.
The most telling development this week is the pace at which shorts have stepped back. Short interest dropped roughly 10% in one week to 1.17% of the free float, the lowest reading since mid-March when an earlier unwind took the figure from 1.47% to around 1.20%. That prior step-down proved sticky; this second leg lower follows Q1 earnings released on April 28, where the stock closed up nearly 1.5% on the day. The quick recap: bears had been rebuilding from late March through mid-April, pushing SI back toward 1.30% of float. Then, in a single session on April 23, reported shares short dropped sharply — and they have stayed down. Borrow costs remain negligible, running at around 0.41% annualised and having shed about 18% over the past month. Availability is ample. Nothing in the lending market suggests any constraint on either direction. The short score sits at 39.9, broadly neutral and well off any elevated reading.
Options positioning has become the more interesting signal. The put/call ratio has edged up to 0.25, nearly two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.23. That is still a low absolute reading — this stock generally carries heavy call skew — but the relative move is notable. It marks the highest PCR reading of the past year (the 52-week high is 0.40; the 52-week low is 0.21). The direction of travel points to a modest uptick in protective positioning, even as the stock itself has gained 2.8% on the week to $38.79.
The Street has spent six weeks lifting its view. Stifel raised its target to $42 following earnings, keeping a Buy rating. Before that, TD Cowen moved its Hold target from $34 to $38, and Jefferies did the same — from $34 to $40. Wells Fargo went further, upgrading to Overweight in late March and pushing its target to $42. Morgan Stanley, running the lone Underweight, also raised its target from $34 to $38, suggesting even the most cautious voice on the Street sees less downside than it did a month ago. The consensus mean target is $40.20, roughly 4% above the current price. The bull case centres on fee-based cash flow stability, low leverage, and identified growth projects. The bear case points to commodity exposure through natural gas and NGL, regulatory risk, and projects still under construction. Valuation is undemanding: PE is 13.2x and EV/EBITDA is 10.9x, both little moved over 30 days. The 12-month forward yield is nearly 6%, ranking in the 88th percentile on dividend score across the universe — the income proposition is the core of most buy arguments.
Close peers also had a strong week, lending context to the move. OKE gained 6% on the week and PAA added nearly 5.7%, both outpacing EPD's 2.8%. PAGP rose about 4%. The midstream complex broadly caught a bid, so EPD's gain is sector-driven as much as stock-specific.
The insider picture adds a small supportive footnote. Co-CEO A. James Teague bought roughly 2,700 units at $37.55 in late March — a modest but open-market purchase by the most senior executive. The 90-day net inside activity is a net positive in share terms, though the scale is not material against the company's roughly $83 billion market cap. Enterprise Products Company, the controlling entity, holds 31.4% of the partnership — the structure limits the overhang from any single-holder shift.
With no next earnings event yet confirmed, the immediate calendar driver has passed. What to watch: whether the short interest remains compressed below 1.2% of float as the post-earnings period settles, and whether the options market's tentative drift toward put protection accelerates or mean-reverts as the PCR normalises toward its tight 20-day range.
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