Intuitive Machines has dropped 33% in a week, erasing most of the pre-earnings rally, while its own founder sold nearly $5.5 million of stock at the highs.
The price collapse is the defining fact this week. LUNR closed at $29.36 on June 5, down 33% over five trading days and 13% on Thursday alone — the session after the June 4 earnings print. That one-day reaction matches almost exactly the post-earnings pattern: the previous print on May 14 also delivered a 5% decline the day after. The June 4 release was worse, falling 13%. The stock is now back below the mean analyst target of $40.78, a level it was trading above just days ago. The rally that sent it up 78% in a month has been more than half reversed.
The insider activity sharpens the picture considerably. Founder and Chairman Kamal Ghaffarian sold more than $5.4 million worth of shares across six transactions on June 1 — with prices ranging from $38.50 to $43.03. That selling came at the peak, days before the earnings-driven collapse. His 90-day net across all insiders runs to a positive 1.2 million shares, but the framing matters: what the data records as "net positive" reflects prior accumulation, not the current direction of travel. The chairman sold into strength, at prices roughly 30-40% above where the stock trades now.
The borrow market has loosened noticeably since the pre-earnings extreme, but it remains tight in absolute terms. Availability recovered to 15.8% on June 4 — up sharply from the near-zero readings that characterised the pre-print setup (availability collapsed to 2.1% on June 3 and 1.9% on May 29). That is still tight: roughly one lendable share for every six already borrowed. The cost to borrow has fallen to 0.75%, down from 1.56% at the start of June, suggesting the acute squeeze pressure is easing. Short interest itself barely moved — 26.7% of float, essentially the same structural level flagged in every prior note. Bears covered nothing meaningful. They waited through the earnings, watched the stock drop 13%, and held their position.
Options positioning has normalised after the extreme pre-print setup. The put/call ratio is 0.44, modestly above its 20-day average of 0.39 at roughly 1.7 standard deviations — elevated but far from the four-sigma spike that hit 0.70 just before the June 4 event. Traders who loaded up on protective puts into earnings have largely unwound those hedges. The ORTEX short score of 68.7 places LUNR in the 4th percentile for its category — the bear case remains structurally embedded, not a recent positioning trade.
The Street has not flinched yet, but the targets are now almost entirely above the current price. Roth Capital raised its target to $75 on May 28 — a 50% jump in one week — while Cantor Fitzgerald moved to $43, Canaccord to $41, and B. Riley to $45. Every recent action was a maintain-with-raise. Against a $29.36 close, the consensus target implies roughly 39% upside, and even the more conservative names are sitting 40% above market. Bulls point to Q4 gross profit growth of 1,150% year-over-year, the Lanteris acquisition bolstering satellite manufacturing, and alignment with rising lunar and defense spending. Bears counter with an EV/EBITDA of 115x, an ongoing net loss, and a history of widening bottom-line losses — the factor scores confirm this tension, with an EPS surprise rank at the 97th percentile but an EPS momentum score of zero. The stock is beating estimates but still losing money at scale.
Peers confirm the week's move was not idiosyncratic — RKLB fell 23%, RDW dropped 25%, and VOYG lost 16% over the same period. Sector-wide selling provided the backdrop. But LUNR fell more than most, and the founder's timely exit at the top adds a layer the peer data alone cannot explain.
With the next earnings event now pencilled for August 7, the key question is whether short sellers — who have held their 26.7% float position through a 33% drawdown — treat the current price as vindication or as an entry point to cover ahead of the next catalyst.
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