ABNB heads into Thursday's Q1 earnings call with the insider and short-seller signals pointing in opposite directions — CEO Brian Chesky sold roughly $14 million of stock on Sunday while short sellers have been quietly covering at the fastest pace in weeks.
The Chesky sales are the headline. He offloaded around 133,000 shares across multiple tranches on June 1, collecting approximately $13.9 million at prices between $132.60 and $138.03. That follows a pattern noted in the previous note: co-founders Nathan Blecharczyk and Joseph Gebbia were also trimming in May. The 90-day net insider position is still a net buy of roughly 823,000 shares — and these are almost certainly pre-scheduled plan sales from one of the largest individual holders of a $80 billion company — but the timing, two days before a scheduled earnings call, gives it weight regardless of the mechanism. Chesky still holds 66 million shares, more than 11% of the company.
Short interest tells a sharply different story from last week. It has fallen 16% over the past seven days, dropping from around 16.4 million shares to 13.7 million — back to levels last seen in early May. SI as a percentage of free float is now 3.2%, down from 3.9% in the previous note. That reversal is meaningful. Shorts that built positions through the mid-May period have been covering into the earnings window rather than pressing the trade. The borrow market reflects no stress: cost to borrow runs at just 0.48%, and availability is extraordinarily loose at roughly 8,778% — there are vastly more shares available to lend than are currently borrowed. There is no squeeze dynamic here.
Options positioning has shifted toward less defensive territory. The put/call ratio dropped to 1.02 on Tuesday, more than two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 1.07 — the lowest reading this stock has seen in almost a year. That's a notable pivot. Through most of May, the PCR was running above the 1.07 average; over the past week it has unwound sharply. Options traders have been reducing downside hedges heading into the print, not adding them. That aligns with the short-covering picture: the two biggest groups of negative bets are both retreating simultaneously.
The Street has been broadly constructive since the last earnings beat in early May. Most analysts who updated then raised their targets — Citigroup lifted to $175, Wells Fargo to $181, RBC to $173 — while holding ratings steady. The consensus remains at hold, with 18 analysts there versus just 3 at outperform and none at sell. The stock at $134 trades below most published targets, with the mean implied roughly 20-25% upside to the bull-case cluster. Valuation has compressed: the P/E has pulled back nearly two points over the past month to around 24.6x, and EV/EBITDA has retreated almost a full turn. Bulls point to a forward EPS estimate momentum score in the 79th percentile and a 12-month forward EPS growth rank in the 98th percentile. Bears note that the platform's revenue remains wholly transaction-fee dependent, leaving it exposed to any disruption in travel demand or regulatory pressure on short-term rentals.
The earnings reaction history is thin but consistent in one direction: after the last two prints, ABNB fell on the day and extended those losses over the following five sessions. The May 2026 result produced a 1.2% gain on the day but a 5.4% decline over the five days after. The prior report ended with a 2.4% drop on day one and a further 5.4% slide over the week. Closer peers were mixed on the day: BKNG slipped 1.2% and EXPE fell 0.9%, while VAC outperformed with a 12.4% weekly gain.
The setup into Thursday's close is less charged than last week's note suggested it might be. Shorts are covering, hedges are unwinding, and valuation has compressed. What Friday brings depends less on whether the travel demand story holds and more on whether management's commentary on pricing power and host supply gives the Street a reason to move targets materially — in either direction.
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