RTX Corporation has now fallen another 2.3% on the week to $190.99, extending a bruising one-month decline of 9% — and the most telling development is that Bernstein trimmed its price target this morning even as the broader Street holds its ground ahead of the October 20 earnings date.
The analyst picture has shifted at the margin since last week's note. Bernstein's Douglas Harned lowered his target to $223 from $232 today, maintaining Market Perform — a subtle acknowledgment that the stock's recent slide has eroded some of the cushion built in after Q2's strong beat. That move runs against the grain of the post-Q2 consensus, which saw targets move sharply higher: TD Cowen lifted to $240, RBC Capital to $250, and Susquehanna to $245, all in late July following the quarter's 9% single-day pop. The consensus target now sits at $234, a 22% premium to the current price — meaningful upside on paper, but one worth contextualising. Most of those targets predate the September selloff. The Street broadly remains constructive, with bulls pointing to a diverse revenue base spanning commercial aerospace and defense, strong organic growth, and a robust contract backlog. Bears flag the downside scenario more specifically: slower commercial aerospace recovery and incremental Geared Turbofan engine headwinds that could compress free cash flow toward $10.2B and justify a materially lower multiple.
The options market is telling a different story from the price action. Positioning has actually tilted less defensive than usual, with the put/call ratio at 0.78 — about one standard deviation below its 20-day average of 0.80. That's a notable contrast. The stock is down 9% in a month, yet options buyers are running lighter on puts than they've been all quarter. The PCR peaked above 1.0 in mid-August and has fallen steadily since, suggesting traders have reduced hedges rather than added them into the Q3 print. Whether that reflects comfort with the setup or simple complacency heading into October 20 is the question worth watching.
Short interest remains a non-story. It ticked up about 4% on the week to just under 0.95% of the free float — still negligibly small. The borrow market is effectively unlimited, with availability registering at the data ceiling and cost to borrow sitting at 0.44%. There is no short-side pressure on this stock. The one-month picture actually shows a sharp reduction in shares short — from above 18 million in mid-August to below 13 million now — consistent with the prior note's observation that short sellers are stepping back, not piling in, as the price falls. That pattern continues.
Peer context adds some colour. LMT fell 2.1% on the week and NOC dropped 4%, while LHX shed 3.9%. TDG and GE bucked the trend, gaining 2.5% and 4% respectively. RTX's 2.3% weekly decline puts it in the middle of a broadly weak sector tape — the selloff is not idiosyncratic. The factor picture remains reasonably supportive: RTX scores in the 72nd percentile on short score rank, the 77th on days-to-cover rank, and the 87th percentile on dividend score — none of which are at extremes, but the composite suggests the stock is not in distressed territory on any structural metric.
The earnings history from July 23 carries a number — a 9.2% single-day gain on the last print, which extended to 10% over five days — and Q3 on October 20 is now the next concrete catalyst. With the stock 9% cheaper than it was a month ago and the Street's targets largely anchored to the post-Q2 optimism, the October print will test whether the guidance raised in July was durable or whether the GTF headwinds the bears cite are beginning to bite.
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