PENN Entertainment enters its June 16 earnings call with an interesting split: options traders have pivoted markedly more bullish over the past two weeks, even as a double-digit short position stays firmly in place.
The options story has been the week's sharpest move. Calls now dominate the options market far more than usual — the put/call ratio has dropped to 0.38, well below its 20-day average of 0.44 and close to the lowest level of the past year at 0.32. That's roughly 1.3 standard deviations below the mean, a meaningful tilt toward upside positioning. The shift mirrors the price action: PENN is up 21% over the past month to $20.32, including a 6% gain Tuesday alone. The one-week move of just over 1% understates the momentum that has built through May.
Short interest tells a more cautious story underneath. Bears have maintained a meaningful grip — 12.6% of the free float is sold short, a level classified as high. That figure has crept up about 1.6% on the week and 2.1% on Tuesday alone after spending May drifting lower from an early-month peak near 14.5%. The borrow market remains extremely loose: availability is running at roughly 1,467%, far above even the 52-week trough of 235%, meaning new short positions face essentially no friction to establish. Cost to borrow is just 0.41%, barely moved over the month despite the SI bounce. The setup is not a squeeze — it is a well-funded short base facing a rallying stock ahead of an earnings catalyst.
The Street has been broadly constructive. Most firms lifted targets after the April print, including JPMorgan and Barclays both moving to $22-24 with Overweight ratings. Macquarie followed in May, nudging its target to $23. Morgan Stanley is the outlier, holding Equal-Weight with a $17 target — below the current price — signalling that the sceptics see the recent rally as running ahead of fundamentals. The mean target of roughly $20.33 now sits almost exactly at the current price, which means the average analyst has already been caught by the move. The bull case centres on iCasino share gains and brick-and-mortar EBITDAR stability; the bear case points to persistent online market-share losses and the challenge of scaling ESPN Bet profitably against better-capitalised rivals. The EV/EBITDA multiple has expanded to 7.2x over the past month as the stock re-rated, though the earnings yield factor sits in only the 10th percentile on EV/EBIT, flagging the valuation stretch. Among correlated peers, MGM slipped 2.5% on the week while CZR and WYNN both added around 1-3%, leaving PENN broadly in line with the sector's cautiously positive tone.
One institutional footnote worth noting: Goldman Sachs added over 1.4 million shares in Q1, bringing its reported position to roughly 3.9 million. HG Vora, by contrast, trimmed 575,000 shares in the same period. The institutional ownership picture is otherwise stable, with BlackRock and Vanguard holding the largest blocks passively.
The last comparable earnings print, on April 23, sent the stock up 17% on the day and 18% over the following week — a reminder that the distribution of outcomes here is wide. The prior report in May saw virtually no first-day move, then a 5.5% slide over the following week. With options leaning bullish into June 16, the key watch points are the trajectory of ESPN Bet user acquisition costs, any update on iCasino state expansion, and whether management's commentary shifts the balance between the two analyst camps that are currently sitting almost $6 apart on price target.
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