Camping World Holdings heads into its Q1 2026 earnings today with one of the most heavily shorted positions in consumer retail — and a brutal recent earnings history that frames the stakes.
Short sellers have built a formidable position. Short interest in CWH now runs at roughly 25.8% of free float, up sharply from around 20.4% at the start of April after a step-jump that added nearly six percentage points in a single week. That 37% month-on-month surge in shares short is the clearest signal of where institutional conviction lies heading into the print. Borrow costs remain subdued at 0.53%, and borrow availability is ample relative to the position size — lending conditions present no friction for would-be shorts. The ORTEX short score of 57.1 is elevated but has been drifting lower over the past two weeks, off from a recent peak of 60.6 on April 20, hinting that the rate of short accumulation has cooled slightly.
Options positioning offers a counterpoint. The put/call ratio is running at 0.13 — actually near the low end of its 52-week range — barely above the 20-day average of 0.13. Options traders are not signalling heightened fear into this report; the skew remains call-heavy by historical standards. That divergence is notable: short sellers have pushed hard, but options desks have not followed with aggressive downside hedging, leaving the two markets telling different stories about near-term risk.
The bull-bear debate turns on whether management can arrest the margin slide. Bulls point to RV unit momentum — 15.6% same-store unit growth year-on-year, with used RV sales up 33.4% — and to an adjusted EBITDA beat in the most recent quarter. Bears see a structural margin problem: new RV gross margins are projected to decline toward 12.3%, used margins to 18.0%, with implied 2026 adjusted EBITDA of $276 million falling well short of prior Street estimates around $313 million. Analysts who have updated targets recently have moved in one direction only: Truist cut to $14 in early April, following a cluster of post-Q4 reductions from BMO, Roth, and Keybanc, all maintaining positive ratings but trimming targets to a mean of $14.33 against a $6.93 stock price. That gap — targets more than twice the current price — reflects how far the shares have fallen since those calls were made, not necessarily imminent upside.
The earnings history sets an uncomfortable backdrop. After the February 2026 print, CWH fell approximately 20% in a single session and extended those losses to around 32% over the following five days. Institutional holders include Eminence Capital, which added over 1.8 million shares through end-2024, and Vanguard, which added 190,000 shares through Q1 2026 — modest signs of buying at lower levels. CEO Marcus Lemonis sold $2.4 million of stock in December and a further $850,000 in November, a consistent insider-selling pattern that has not reversed.
Today's Q1 report is a test of whether the RV demand recovery is outrunning the margin deterioration — and whether short sellers positioned at a multi-month high have correctly read the direction of travel.
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