BF.A arrives at today's fiscal year-end earnings release with the stock cheaper than when the last preview was written — down another dollar to $25.54 — and with the borrow market sending a quiet but unmistakable warning that the anxiety is building.
The most telling shift since the May 31 preview is in cost to borrow. It has nearly doubled in a week, climbing from around 1.3% to 2.41% APR. That is still an inexpensive borrow in absolute terms, but the 87% weekly jump signals fresh demand for short exposure right at the earnings gate. Short interest itself has risen about 16% over the past week to 0.54% of the free float — low in the absolute sense, but a meaningful directional move for a tightly held, family-controlled name. Availability remains comfortable at roughly 299%, so there is no squeeze risk; the bears are building positions deliberately, not scrambling for supply.
Options traders are leaning the other way. The put/call ratio has drifted down to 0.70, nearly 1.4 standard deviations below its 20-day average — the most call-heavy posture in recent months. That divergence from the short-interest move is genuine and worth naming: the borrow market is incrementally more bearish while the options market remains skewed toward recovery. Neither reading is extreme, but together they describe a setup with real disagreement baked in.
The fundamental debate has not changed. Bulls anchor to Brown-Forman's dividend credentials — a 99th-percentile dividend score — and a strong EPS surprise history that ranks in the 80th percentile. The company's Jack Daniel's and premium tequila franchises give it durable brand equity even in a volume-softness cycle. Bears point to exactly that softness: the company halted production at one distillery last week as the global whiskey slump deepens, and American whiskey export volumes face tariff headwinds that have no quick resolution. The stock has essentially halved from its highs, and RBC Capital reiterated a Sector Perform rating with a $30 target as recently as June 2 — $4.50 above the current price, but hardly a ringing endorsement from a firm that could have upgraded at these levels and chose not to.
The two prior earnings prints are the sharpest available reference: the stock fell 4.1% in the session after the March 2026 report and then extended losses to roughly 12% over the following five days. The June 4 print is less about whether the volume decline is real and more about whether management can show a credible floor on margins while guiding through an environment where even a distillery production halt signals structural, not cyclical, pressure.
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