ABNB heads into Thursday's results with options traders taking their most constructive stance in months — a notable shift from the defensive posture that dominated all spring.
The options signal is the clearest new development. The put/call ratio has dropped to 1.01, more than two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 1.07. That makes this the least defensively positioned the options market has been over the past year, approaching the 52-week low of 0.87. Traders who spent much of May loading puts have rotated toward calls heading into the June 5 print. The borrow market adds no friction to this picture: availability is abundant at roughly 8,778% of short interest — far into the loose end of the range — and cost to borrow is a negligible 0.48%. There is no meaningful squeeze dynamic in play.
Short interest reinforces the shift. As noted in yesterday's piece, shorts have covered aggressively — SI fell 16% over the past seven days to 13.7 million shares, now representing 3.2% of the free float, the lowest level since early May. The short score has dropped from 38 to 35.9 over the same period, consistent with a broader retreat rather than repositioning. Two months ago, the same metric was tracking closer to 38 as bears rebuilt positions; that trade has now largely unwound ahead of the print. Peers and both drifted lower on the week, down roughly 2% and 0.5% respectively, leaving ABNB's flat-to-positive week looking relatively resilient inside the online travel group.
The analyst debate is less about direction than degree. Bulls — Citigroup with a $175 target, Wells Fargo at $181, and DA Davidson raising to $162 after the last print — point to Airbnb's platform scale, continued margin expansion, and 12-month forward EPS growth ranking in the 98th percentile of its universe. Bears, including JPMorgan holding Neutral at $140 and Barclays at Equal-Weight with a $125 target (below the current price), flag valuation. The stock trades at roughly 24.6x earnings and 13.6x EV/EBITDA — multiples that have compressed about 7% and 8% respectively over the past 30 days, offering some relief but still leaving little room for a miss. The consensus holds at 18 Hold ratings against just three Outperforms, an unusually cautious skew for a stock the bulls argue is still in a multi-year growth phase.
CEO Brian Chesky sold approximately $14 million of stock on June 1 — the timing, one trading day before earnings, will draw scrutiny regardless of its scheduled nature. He retains more than 66 million shares. The 90-day net insider position remains a net buy of roughly 823,000 shares, so the picture is mixed. Thursday's print will test whether the margin profile and forward booking trends justify the premium the bulls are paying — and whether the bears' valuation concerns have already been priced in by a stock down 5.7% over the past month.
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