Glaukos Corporation enters the week with a striking divergence: the stock has surged 14% in five days while short sellers are cutting exposure and options positioning has flipped from extreme defensiveness to the most call-heavy reading in months.
The options signal is the most dramatic shift in the data. The put/call ratio collapsed to 0.48 on Tuesday — nearly 1.7 standard deviations below its 20-day mean of 13.7, and close to the year's low of 0.16. That's a dramatic rotation from the prior weeks: as recently as May 18, the PCR hit 27.6, its 52-week peak, meaning options flow has swung from the most bearish defensive posture of the year to the most aggressively call-oriented in under three weeks. The speed of that reversal, combined with the 14% price jump, suggests investors who were hedging into the May 28 earnings release have rapidly unwound those positions following the report.
Short interest tells a consistent story. Bears have been reducing exposure, not building it: short interest fell 9.5% on the week to 5.4% of the free float — about 3.1 million shares. That pullback follows a modest one-month decline of 5.2%, confirming the retreat predates this week's price move. Borrow conditions are relaxed throughout. The cost to borrow is a negligible 0.45%, barely changed from a month ago, and availability is extremely loose at over 2,300% — meaning shares to borrow far outnumber shares already borrowed. The ORTEX short score has also drifted lower, easing from 43.4 on May 27 to 40.0 this week, consistent with the directional shift in positioning. There is no squeeze dynamic here; shorts are simply walking away.
The Street remains broadly constructive, though a few caveats apply. The consensus skews bullish, with the most recent action from BTIG — a Buy reiteration with a $162 target, filed Tuesday — providing fresh cover for longs at current levels. Earlier in the post-earnings cycle, JP Morgan lifted its target to $140 while maintaining Overweight, Citigroup raised to $140, and Wells Fargo moved to $138 — a cluster of upward revisions that collectively signal the Street absorbed the Q1 results as better-than-feared rather than alarming. The mean price target of $154.50 sits about 22% above Tuesday's close of $126.34. Valuation is still a stretch: EV/EBITDA is running at over 400x and the trailing PE is deeply negative, reflecting the growth-over-profitability profile that the bear case centres on. Factor scores corroborate the tension — EPS surprise ranks in the 78th percentile, forward EPS growth momentum scores 70th, but near-term earnings momentum has weakened sharply (30-day rank of just 2). Bulls cite durable iDose and iStent adoption; bears flag execution risk, reimbursement headwinds, and the May 28 earnings print that initially sent the stock down nearly 6% before a 10.7% five-day recovery.
One institutional data point worth watching: Janus Henderson added 2.3 million shares in Q1, lifting its stake to 9.1% of shares outstanding, making it the second-largest institutional holder after BlackRock's 15.5%. That is a material conviction add at a time when the stock was trading well below current levels. The CFO also sold $1.4 million in shares on April 30 and the President/COO sold $2.8 million on May 1 — both at prices above $140, now above where the stock trades — which adds a layer of insider caution worth noting even if the transactions are routine plan sales.
Q3 earnings are pencilled in for July 29, giving the next hard catalyst roughly seven weeks away. The key question into that print is whether the forward EPS growth story — analysts project substantial earnings expansion — can survive contact with continued competitive pressure in the MIGS market that the bear case emphasises, or whether this week's positioning unwind proves to be a durable re-rating.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open GKOS on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
