CP Borrow Costs Triple as Shorts Rebuild Before October Earnings

Short interest itself is low in absolute terms but has moved sharply. At 0.66% of the free float, the headline level is not the sort of figure that typically signals significant bearish conviction against a large-cap railway. The direction of travel is harder to ignore, though. Shares short have climbed 53% over the past week and 36% over the past month, with a particularly steep one-day jump of 40% on October 6. The ORTEX short score is running at 27.98, near the bottom of its recent range after easing back from a brief spike toward 30 in late September, when a separate round of short positioning built and then partially unwound. On factor scores, the short score ranks in the 85th percentile across the universe, consistent with a name that, while not heavily shorted in absolute terms, is attracting meaningful attention relative to its peers.

The Street's posture on CP is cautious but not bearish, with valuation the clearest pressure point. The PE multiple has compressed about 1.2 points over the past 30 days to just under 21x, and EV/EBITDA has drifted down to 14.6x over the same period. The EV/EBIT factor score ranks in the 27th percentile, a weak reading that reflects the market's scepticism about near-term earnings power, consistent with analyst notes flagging volume challenges and integration complexity following the KCS merger. Analyst price target data in the snapshot is too dated to cite with confidence, but the broader narrative from recent notes points to a stock where the long-term cross-border Mexico thesis remains intact while short-term freight and tariff headwinds weigh on consensus. Dividend positioning is unusually strong, ranking in the 98th percentile on dividend score, though the dividend history in the snapshot predates 2023 and cannot be verified as current.

Among peers, CP is the week's relative laggard. CNR fell 1.6% on the week and UNP edged 0.9% higher, while CSX and NSC both posted gains above 1%. TFII was the notable underperformer across the group, dropping nearly 6%. CP's 1% weekly decline puts it in the weaker half of the peer set, though not dramatically out of step with the Canadian names.

The earnings history adds relevant context without clarifying direction. The most recent quarterly print, reported July 29, produced a one-day decline of 4.7% and left the stock roughly 1.1% lower five days out. The prior print showed a more muted 0.6% one-day decline. That pattern suggests the market has had a tendency to sell CP on results rather than reward it, a backdrop that may partly explain why shorts are rebuilding ahead of the October 27 release. With three weeks until the print, the question worth watching is whether the current borrow cost spike stabilises or continues to climb, and whether short interest reverts as quickly as it did after the late-September episode.