Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. heads into June with a striking split: short sellers have meaningfully rebuilt positions over the past week, yet options traders are the most bullish they have been all year.
The options picture is the sharpest signal right now. The put/call ratio dropped to 0.49 on June 2 — roughly 2.5 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.65. That is close to the 52-week low of 0.38 and marks the most call-dominated positioning seen in months. Options traders are not hedging this rally; they are leaning into it.
Short positioning tells a different story. Short interest climbed nearly 19% over the past week to 6.1% of free float — a meaningful jump that continues the trend flagged in the May 27 note, when a month-long creep higher in shorts was already visible. Since late April, short interest has grown roughly 24%. That is a material build against a stock that has risen 12% over the same period. The borrow market, however, offers no ammunition to the bears: cost to borrow has fallen sharply, down 27% week-on-week to just 0.34% annualised. Availability remains exceptionally loose at over 1,000% of short interest — meaning shares to borrow are plentiful and there is no squeeze pressure in the lending market. The setup is more "shorts are making a reasoned bet" than "shorts are cornered."
The Street has continued to chase the stock higher. Guggenheim raised its target to $470 from $422 on June 3, keeping Buy — the most aggressive target on the board. Susquehanna lifted to $429 last week. The mean target across covering analysts is now $398, versus a close of $382.72, leaving only a modest 4% gap between price and consensus. That gap has compressed considerably since the May 27 note, when it stood at roughly 5% against a $366 close. Citigroup remains the lone holdout at Neutral with a $360 target — now below the market price. Bulls point to franchise value optionality, particularly around a potential Knicks/Rangers separation. Bears cite tax code headwinds and execution risk on any such restructuring. EPS momentum scores rank in the 99th and 98th percentile on 30- and 90-day windows respectively, which reflects the recent strong earnings trajectory. The EV/EBITDA multiple, while elevated in absolute terms, has compressed about 9% over the past month as the earnings base has improved.
The institutional register is worth noting. The Dolan family trust remains the anchor at 19.2% of shares. BlackRock added roughly 15,700 shares in its most recent filing, and T. Rowe Price added about 40,600. Silver Lake, holding 7.9%, reported no change. The Vanguard entities appear as new positions in the latest filings, though these likely reflect reclassification rather than fresh buying. Overall, the register looks stable and concentrated, with no major holder visibly trimming.
The next scheduled earnings event is August 12. Between now and then, the key tension to watch is whether short sellers continue adding at this pace while the stock keeps grinding higher — or whether the compression of the analyst price-target gap eventually removes the fundamental justification for further upside bets, prompting options positioning to cool from its current call-heavy extreme.
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