Haemonetics Corporation enters its May 7 earnings call in an unusual spot: short sellers have been cutting exposure for six weeks, options traders are positioned bullishly, and yet the stock trades at a near-50% discount to the Street's mean price target — a gap that reflects lingering scepticism after two brutal post-earnings drops.
The short interest story has been the standout move of the past month. SI peaked near 6% of free float in mid-March, then collapsed in early April — falling sharply around April 9 — before briefly spiking back toward 4.8% in the week of April 21-23. It has since eased again to 4.46%, down more than 25% on a 30-day basis. The borrow market is not signalling any squeeze pressure at all. Availability is extremely wide: utilization has dropped to just 3.8%, against a 52-week high of 22.4%. Cost to borrow is almost negligible at 0.58% annualised. Bears who remain short face almost no friction in doing so — those who have been covering appear to be doing it on conviction, not compulsion.
Options positioning tells the same relaxed story, but with a distinctly bullish tilt. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.18, below its 20-day average of 0.23, sitting toward the lower end of the past year's range (52-week low is 0.05, high is 1.63). A PCR this low reflects call-dominated activity — traders are leaning into upside rather than hedging downside into the print. That's a meaningful shift from earlier in the quarter, when the PCR was running near 0.39 in late March.
The Street remains broadly constructive but has been methodically trimming targets since February's ugly earnings miss. Mizuho kept its Outperform but cut from $80 to $70 in mid-April. Citigroup has moved twice — first from $88 to $75 in February, then to $70 in March — all while holding Neutral. The mean target across the analyst base still sits at $84.60, implying roughly 43% upside to the current $59.01 close. That gap is wide enough to invite scepticism — it likely reflects targets that have not fully adjusted to where the stock now trades. On valuation, the P/E has eased to around 10.7x, and EV/EBITDA to 8.1x, both down meaningfully over the past 30 days. The bulls' thesis rests on plasma segment strength (20%+ organic growth, expanding margins) and rising free cash flow. Bears flag the interventional technologies segment's 11.6% organic decline and a FY26 revenue guidance range that points to an outright contraction.
HAE's peer group has had a rough week. GMED fell 7.6% and TCMD dropped nearly 10%, while IINN lost almost 24%. HAE's own 3.5% weekly decline looks contained by comparison. The relative resilience may reflect the ongoing short covering, which has provided some mechanical bid into the weakness.
The last two earnings prints both produced immediate drops of around 10%, with losses extending to 11-13% over the following five sessions. EPS momentum factor scores rank in the 86th percentile on a 30-day basis and 77th on 90 days — suggesting estimates have been moving higher into the May 7 print — but those same scores preceded a sharp miss in February. The key question heading into May 7 is whether the plasma segment's strength is enough to offset continued weakness in interventional, and whether management updates FY26 guidance in a way that gives the buyable case firmer footing.
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