GFL Environmental heads into its Q2 earnings print tomorrow with short sellers rebuilding positions at a pace that stands out against an otherwise steady stock.
The short interest story is the most interesting thing happening on GFL right now. Bears have added roughly 1.8 million shares over the past week alone — a 25% jump in short positions — pushing the SI to 2.5% of the free float. Zoom out a month and the picture sharpens further: short interest has nearly doubled since late June, rising 58% from around 4.5 million shares to 8.7 million. For a name with relatively low short interest in absolute terms, that velocity is notable. The ORTEX short score has drifted higher through the week from 40 to 45.6, confirming the direction of travel.
Importantly, the borrow market is not signalling acute stress. Availability is running at 241%, meaning there are roughly 2.4 shares available to borrow for every one already lent out — comfortable territory. Borrowing costs are effectively flat at 0.57%, having drifted lower over the past month. This means the short-building is happening in an easy-borrow environment. Bears are choosing to add exposure here, not scrambling to find it. The availability has tightened meaningfully from the mid-June reading above 1,000% when the borrow pool was barely touched, but the current level is still well within normal range and leaves the door open for further short-side accumulation.
The street picture is complicated by stale data. Analyst price target information in the system dates back to early 2021 and reflects a very different share price environment — it cannot be read against the current CAD 55.26 level with confidence, so those figures are excluded here. What is visible from valuation multiples is that GFL trades at a P/E of 48x and EV/EBITDA of 11.7x. The EV/EBITDA multiple has eased slightly over the past month. Meanwhile the P/B ratio has expanded roughly 5% over 30 days, tracking the stock's 4% monthly gain. Factor scores show strong 30-day EPS momentum (85th percentile) but near-bottom EPS surprise (2nd percentile) and a weak EV/EBIT rank (6th percentile), suggesting the market is paying a growth premium that earnings delivery has not recently validated.
The institutional register offers useful context. BC Partners, the private equity backer that took GFL public, remains the largest holder at 17% of shares. Capital Research and MFS have both been adding — Capital Research added 1.3 million shares through to end-June, and MFS added 850,000 shares through May. Those are meaningful incremental buys by long-only institutions, sitting directly against the short-side rebuild of the past four weeks. Founder Patrick Dovigi holds 3.4% and received a share award in February, though the most recent open-market insider activity in the system dates to late 2025 and is now stale.
Closest peers had a muted week. WM added 2.7% and WCN was flat while RSG edged up less than 1% — GFL's 2.2% weekly gain outpaced its North American waste peers, making the simultaneous short build an interesting divergence. The two most recent earnings prints offer a split read: GFL rose 2% in the day after the May 2026 print but fell 5% after the April 2026 release. What to watch after tomorrow's Q2 release is whether the sharp short rebuild over the past month was position-building ahead of a thesis, or whether it covers quickly if the company delivers on the strong EPS momentum the forward estimate drift has been signalling.
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