ELD is enjoying one of its strongest weeks in recent memory — up 14% on the TSX — as short sellers cut positions and a cluster of institutional buyers signal fresh conviction in the Skouries story.
The institutional picture is the standout. Van Eck added 5.2 million shares in its most recently reported quarter, Capital Research added 7.7 million, and L1 Capital built a fresh 4.0 million-share position. Most striking is Hamblin Watsa — Fairfax Financial's investment arm — which appears to have initiated a stake of 13.7 million shares, worth roughly 5.3% of outstanding shares. Helikon Investments similarly built a position of 11.2 million shares from scratch. That's a lot of new money arriving at the same time, concentrated among active managers with long-duration mandates rather than passive index trackers. The total holder count now stands at 177 institutions, with the top five collectively controlling just over a third of the company.
Short positioning reinforces the bullish lean, though it isn't the main event here. Short interest has fallen roughly 8% over the past week to 1.9% of the free float — a low and declining level by any measure — and has dropped more than 12% over the past month, with the retreat accelerating as the stock climbed. Borrowing costs have eased too, now running at 0.6% annualised, down from around 1% in late July. Availability is exceptionally loose at 865% — there are nearly nine shares available to borrow for every one currently borrowed — so there's no squeeze dynamic at work here. The short-score reading of 32, sitting in the bottom half of the universe, confirms this is not a story driven by short pressure.
The broader gold tape is helping. Close peers on the TSX all posted strong weekly gains: K (Kinross) led with nearly 19%, WPM (Wheaton Precious Metals) added 16.5%, ARIS gained 15.8%, and IMG matched ELD almost exactly at 14.3%. The sector is broadly catching a bid, which means ELD's move is real but not dramatically differentiated from peers on the week. Where ELD does stand out is in its one-month trajectory: up 47%, more than most senior producers, suggesting the Skouries de-risking narrative is compounding onto an already-strong gold backdrop.
Valuation multiples are compressing as the stock re-rates. The P/E has expanded to 8.6x over the past 30 days, and the price-to-book has risen from roughly 1.0x to 1.4x over the same window. EV/EBITDA sits at 4.8x, also moving lower as earnings grow faster than the share price. For a gold producer delivering 12% year-on-year production growth, declining all-in sustaining costs of $1,050/oz, and raised 2026 guidance, the multiples still look undemanding relative to the operational momentum. The earnings history shows a consistent pattern worth noting: after the last two results releases, the stock fell 2–6% on the day before recovering sharply over the following five sessions — the five-day moves were +15% and +12% respectively. The next print is scheduled for October 29.
The week ahead is therefore less about whether the institutional thesis holds and more about whether the gold price can sustain the level that makes $1,050/oz AISC look as compelling as it does right now — and whether the recent wave of new institutional buyers reflects positioning ahead of Q3 results or something more durable in the Skouries construction timeline.
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