Blue Bird Stock Rockets 27% This Week—Here’s the Fuel Behind the Surge

Blue Bird’s stock just pulled off a gravity-defying leap—soaring over 27% in a single week. What’s pumping the jets?

The Short Squeeze Playbook

Looks like the shorts got burned—again. A classic case of underestimating a turnaround story, or just another overhyped bounce? Either way, momentum traders piled in, and the bears got mauled.

Earnings Smoke or Fire?

Numbers don’t lie—unless they’re ‘adjusted.’ Did Blue Bird actually fix its engine, or is this just another cost-cutting sugar high? The market’s betting on the former… for now.

The Institutional Whisper

Rumor has it a major fund flipped bullish. Nothing moves stocks like big money playing follow-the-leader—until the music stops.

One week’s rally doesn’t make a trend—but try telling that to the FOMO crowd. As always on Wall Street, the real question is: Who’s left holding the bag when the music stops?

Blue's success with yellow

That three-month period saw Blue Bird, a longtime manufacturer of school buses, hit new highs for both quarterly revenue and profitability. The former line item zoomed 19% higher to $398 million, while non-GAAP (adjusted) net income improved by more than 26% to $38.7 million ($1.19 per share).

Image source: Getty Images.

Analysts were expecting the quarter to be profitable, but not this profitable. As a group they were modeling only $1 per share for adjusted net income. They also underestimated revenue, as they predicted less than $378 million.

Although it's identified -- if at all -- with the traditional gas-guzzling yellow school buses, Blue Bird has been busily upgrading its signature product over the years. It has pushed assertively into the alternative-fuel space, embracing greener solutions such as electric vehicle (EV) technology.

In its earnings release, Blue Bird referred to "expanding its leadership" in such alt-fuel offerings. It also mentioned that it was able to successfully side-step many of the tariffs recently imposed by the TRUMP administration, among other results-boosting factors.

A lift in guidance

With that solid quarter at its back, Blue Bird felt confident enough to raise its full-year-2025 guidance. The company now expects to earn roughly $1.45 billion in revenue and post an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) figure of $205 million to $215 million. It did not provide a net income estimate.