PPG Industries heads into the back half of June with an unusual split: short sellers are quietly rebuilding positions while options traders are growing more confident by the day.
The short interest picture is the most notable tension in the data right now. Shorts have added meaningfully — SI climbed 30% over the past month to reach 3.7% of the free float, with the week alone adding another 10%. That is a genuine rebuild, not noise. Yet the borrow market offers no squeeze pressure whatsoever. Availability is running at over 1,100% — meaning there are more than eleven shares available to borrow for every one already lent out, well above the 52-week floor of 750%. Cost to borrow hovers around 0.51%, barely above a general collateral rate. The ORTEX short score has crept up to 39.9 from roughly 38 a fortnight ago, but at that level it remains in the lower half of the universe. The data reads as deliberate, low-cost positioning — not a high-conviction crowded short.
Options traders are sending the opposite signal. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.29, sitting roughly 1.2 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.31 and not far from the 52-week low of 0.23. That is a notably call-heavy skew. Through late April and into May, the ratio ran consistently in the 0.33–0.38 range. The recent compression toward the low end of the year's range suggests options participants are positioning for further upside rather than hedging against a reversal — a direct contrast to what the shorts are doing.
The Street sits in a broadly cautious-but-constructive range, with the consensus landing at "buy" and a mean price target around $123, roughly 6% above the current $116.36 close. Recent analyst activity has been mixed without being dramatic. RBC reiterated Sector Perform this week with a $119 target. Earlier in the spring, Citi trimmed its target to $113 and simultaneously downgraded from Buy to Neutral, while Wells Fargo stayed Overweight but cut to $130 from $135. The cumulative direction across the group has been gentle target compression through Q1. Bulls point to PPG's diversified coatings portfolio, cash generation, and margin recovery potential. Bears flag raw material cost pressure, industrial-end-market softness, and limited volume growth visibility. EV/EBITDA has drifted up to around 10.7x over the past month as the stock recovered, which leaves limited margin of safety if the macro narrative deteriorates. PPG's dividend score ranks in the 95th percentile — a genuine support for income-oriented holders — though earnings momentum over the next 12 months ranks weaker, in the 21st percentile.
The price itself has behaved well. PPG closed at $116.36, up 3.1% on the day and 2.4% on the week, broadly in step with its specialty chemicals peers. SHW led the group with a 5.9% weekly gain, and AXTA added 8.1%, suggesting sector-wide tailwinds rather than a PPG-specific catalyst. The next earnings date is July 30, and the most recent Q1 print produced a 2.7% next-day move and a 4.1% five-day move — both positive — after the prior quarter delivered a 5.1% next-day decline. The reaction pattern is inconsistent enough that the July print remains genuinely open.
What to watch between now and July 30: whether the short rebuild continues at its current pace — another month at this rate would push SI toward 5% of float and begin to change the character of the positioning — and whether the call-heavy options skew holds as the stock approaches analyst price targets in the $119–$123 range.
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