HIMS jumps 7% on peptide tailwind but Citi sees 17% downside from here

Investing.com - Hims & Hers Health (NYSE: HIMS) is trading +7.36% at $30.13 on Friday, sharply reversing Thursday's 5.3% slide, as a Washington Post report that the Trump administration is crafting plans to temporarily allow the sale of certain previously restricted peptides overshadowed a cautious analyst reiteration.

The peptide policy development is the primary driver lifting HIMS today. The Washington Post, citing two people familiar with the matter, reported earlier this week that federal health officials are working toward interim rules that would permit sales while permanent regulations are finalized. That prospect lands directly on Hims & Hers' stated growth strategy: the company has told investors it plans to begin offering sermorelin, glutathione, and NAD+ by the end of 2026, with BPC-157 contingent on formal FDA action. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, testifying at an FDA advisory committee hearing in July 2026, said demand for peptides "is large and growing, and the potential volume is likely to dwarf the volumes seen with GLP-1s." That committee voted to allow compounding pharmacies to prepare six peptides for consumers, though the FDA has not yet formally adopted those recommendations.

Truist Securities reiterated a Hold rating and $32 price target on HIMS on Thursday, October 8, per a summary of the note, contributing to that session's selloff alongside an accounting-officer transition filing. Former Rivian controller Jonathan Franklin was appointed principal accounting officer effective today, completing a transition disclosed in July. Against the $32 Truist target, the stock's current intraday level of $30.13 sits inside the range of divided Wall Street opinion: the broader consensus across 16 brokerages stands at a Hold with an average 12-month target of $32.50, comprising four buy, eleven hold, and one sell. Citi holds the most bearish major-broker position with a Sell rating and a $25 price target, implying roughly 17% downside from current levels, while Truist's August upgrade to $32 from $27 was anchored in proprietary card-spending data.

For investors looking for the sharpest single-stock read on a peptide regulatory green light, HIMS itself is that vehicle. The company's explicit public commitment to a peptide lineup by year-end 2026, combined with its existing telehealth infrastructure and the distribution reach it built during the compounded GLP-1 era, positions it as the most operationally ready publicly traded platform to monetize any expansion in compounding-pharmacy peptide access.

The GLP-1 context matters here. Hims & Hers built a significant portion of its recent revenue on compounded semaglutide, but the FDA declared that shortage resolved in May 2025, cutting off that stream and forcing a pivot. Peptides represent the company's next-act thesis, making the Trump administration's reported regulatory posture a narrative catalyst of the first order for the stock's medium-term story.

Session volume of 7.24 million shares is running below the three-month daily average of roughly 12 million shares on a comparable intraday basis at this point in the session, per Investing.com data, suggesting the move is not yet accompanied by a broad surge in participation; some short-covering following Thursday's 5.3% drop remains plausible.

The next concrete test for the bull case arrives on November 9, 2026, when Hims & Hers is scheduled to report Q3 2026 earnings. That will be the first quarterly print after the company's public peptide-launch commitment, and analysts will be watching gross margin mix closely given the shift away from compounded GLP-1s. EPS consensus sits at $0.057 with revenue forecast near $892.9 million, per available estimates, but six downward EPS revisions in the past 90 days against zero upward revisions signal that the analyst community remains skeptical the pivot will deliver near-term earnings power. Any formal FDA rulemaking on compounded peptides ahead of that date — or a company announcement of an active product launch, would reset those estimates and likely force a re-rating of Truist's $32 target and Citi's $25 floor.

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