PSKY enters the week with shorts pulling back and options positioning turning measurably less bearish — an interesting contrast given the stock has lost 5% over the past week and nearly 8% over the past month.
The clearest shift in positioning is on the short side. Short interest fell 8% in a single session on June 9, dropping to roughly 77.3 million shares after holding near 84-85 million through most of May. That one-day move erased the better part of a month's worth of short-building in a single print. The borrow market reflects limited conviction rather than a squeeze: cost to borrow is low at 1.5%, and availability is running at about 75% — meaning there is ample room for new shorts to enter if sentiment sours again. The 52-week availability low was essentially zero, so the current setup is far from stressed.
Options are sending a distinctly lighter signal than recent weeks. The put/call ratio has dropped to 1.08, nearly three standard deviations below its 20-day average of 1.17 — the most call-leaning reading the market has seen in months relative to recent norms. For a stock that has consistently carried heavy put demand, this week's shift stands out. The ORTEX short score has also edged lower from 72.4 at the start of the week to 70.9, its softest reading in roughly two weeks, though it remains elevated. The short score ranks in just the 5th percentile of the broader universe, meaning 95% of stocks carry lower short-side pressure — that context keeps the overall setup firmly in bearish territory despite this week's partial unwind.
The Street remains cautious, though not uniformly so. Morgan Stanley's upgrade to Overweight in early May — with a $14 target — stands out as the lone bullish voice. Wells Fargo has maintained an Underweight rating and trimmed its target to $7, a level that sits well below the current price of $10.24 and implies the market is more optimistic than at least one bellwether firm. Guggenheim cut to $12 and stayed Neutral, while BofA Securities has also held an Underperform stance. The mean analyst target across the group sits around $12.64, implying about 23% upside from current levels — but with the range so wide and the bear case anchored near $7, that average flatters the consensus. Valuation multiples have drifted lower: the PE multiple has contracted by about 1.2 turns over 30 days, and the price-to-book ratio is near 1x, consistent with a stock where the market is pricing in continued revenue pressure rather than recovery.
The ownership picture is unusually concentrated for a publicly listed broadcaster. CEO David Ellison holds just over 30% of shares, and Gerald Cardinale another 13% — together they account for nearly half the company. Both Ellison and COO Andy Brandon-Gordon received equity awards in early May and sold shares on the same day at $10.76, a pattern typical of tax-withholding disposals rather than directional selling. These have low trade significance scores and do not read as a bearish signal. On the institutional side, State Street added over 10 million shares through May, while Contrarius trimmed aggressively, cutting roughly 7 million shares in Q1.
The bull-versus-bear debate on PSKY ultimately hinges on whether the Skydance merger can stabilise revenues that have declined 41% since 2021. Bulls point to the linear sports business and potential synergies from new leadership; bears argue that the company's push into direct-to-consumer risks cannibalising what remains of traditional linear economics while advertising and licensing headwinds persist. The next scheduled earnings event is August 3 — the last two quarterly releases each produced an immediate-day decline of roughly 3.5% to 3.9%, so how management frames the DTC transition against legacy revenue erosion will be the number that matters most to watch.
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