Antero Midstream heads into its April 30 Q1 earnings report with short sellers quietly adding pressure — even as options traders lean in the opposite direction.
The most notable shift heading into the print is a rapid build in short interest. Shorts have climbed 16% over the past week to 2.4% of the free float, adding roughly 1.1 million shares in just two sessions. That still sits well below levels that would signal a crowded short, but the pace of accumulation is unusual. The ORTEX short score has drifted up to 38.5, its highest reading in the 10-day window, consistent with fresh positioning rather than a short squeeze dynamic. Borrow conditions remain easy — cost to borrow is running near 0.39% and availability is ample, meaning new shorts face no friction entering the trade.
Options positioning tells a sharply contrasting story. Call demand is unusually dominant heading into the event, with the put/call ratio at 0.25 — more than one standard deviation below its 20-day average of 0.28 and close to the lowest level of the past year (52-week low: 0.217). That kind of skew toward calls is consistent with investors positioning for an upside surprise rather than hedging against a miss. The two signals — rising short interest alongside a call-heavy options book — reflect a genuinely split market.
The analyst community has been gradually warming to the stock's prospects, even while stopping short of outright bullish ratings. UBS raised its target to $24 in late March, and Goldman Sachs moved its target up to $23 in February, though both maintain Neutral ratings. Wells Fargo has similarly lifted targets multiple times over recent months. The consensus mean target of $23.29 sits about 6% above the current price of $21.88, which is a modest premium that implies the Street sees value but wants proof. The forward EPS growth picture is a clear bull point — the 12-month forward EPS growth estimate ranks in the 94th percentile of the universe. Bears can point to a high price-to-book of 5.0x and a PE of 16.1x that has compressed roughly 0.8 turns over the past month as the stock has given back 5.6%.
The last two earnings prints both produced positive reactions — a 3.7% gain on the day in the most recent quarter and 4.9% the quarter before, with five-day follow-through gains of 6.2% and 3.2% respectively. Whether the Q1 report can sustain that pattern — or whether the recent short build signals a growing conviction that the streak ends here — is exactly what today's print will settle.
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