Reddit Bulls Take the Wheel Ahead of Monday's Print

RDDT enters its June 8 earnings call with options traders at their most bullish in nearly a year — a sharp contrast to the cautious hedging that defined most of the spring.

The options signal is the standout heading into the print. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.71, nearly three standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.81. That is the most call-skewed reading of the past year, with the 52-week low at 0.61 now close at hand. The shift is dramatic: the PCR ran above 0.83 consistently through all of May, then broke lower in the final days of the week as RDDT surged 8.5% on Thursday alone and 9.7% across the week to close at $183.91. The options market is not hedging this earnings — it is leaning into it.

Short interest corroborates the bullish tilt. Bears have been exiting steadily since early May. Short interest has fallen from roughly 17.4 million shares to 13.5 million — now 9.8% of the free float, down 11% on the week and 17% over the month. The borrow market reflects zero squeeze pressure: availability is running at 718%, meaning lenders hold roughly seven shares for every one currently borrowed, and cost to borrow is just 0.51% annualised despite ticking up 24% on the week. Short sellers are not doubling down here.

The bull and bear divide is about durability rather than direction. Bulls point to 69% revenue growth in Q1, a structural data-licensing moat from Reddit's unique conversational corpus, and an AI monetisation angle that few peers can replicate. The analyst community has leaned bullish: most firms raised targets after the April 30 print, with Evercore ISI lifting to $300 and Piper Sandler to $215 — and Loop Capital maintained its $260 Buy rating as recently as June 4. The consensus sits at Buy with a mean target of $224.91, roughly 22% above the current price. Bears flag the sustainability question — whether advertising momentum and user engagement can hold at the pace implied by current multiples. The EV/EBITDA is running near 18x and price-to-earnings near 22x, reasonable by growth-stock standards but sensitive to any guidance miss. Insiders are not adding conviction: CEO Steve Huffman sold roughly $2.8 million of stock on May 29, and CFO Andrew Vollero sold $1.6 million on May 20 — both at prices well below Thursday's close, but still a consistent pattern of distribution heading into the event.

Relative to peers, the divergence is stark. SNAP fell 2.6% on the week and GOOGL dropped 7.7%, while RDDT surged — suggesting this move is idiosyncratic, driven by earnings anticipation rather than sector tailwinds. That makes the June 8 print a direct test of whether the growth premium the market just priced in is backed by a Q2 setup that justifies the stock's new level.