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The Elmet Group Co. arrives at its October 19 earnings date with the borrow market effectively shut and analysts raising targets, a combination that sets up a particularly charged two weeks.
The lending picture has deteriorated sharply since the September 30 note flagged tightening conditions. Availability has collapsed to just 0.45%, the lowest reading of the past year, meaning virtually every share in the lending pool is already lent out. That compares with 7.8% a week ago, a 76% tightening in five sessions. The lending pool has now run fully dry on multiple occasions in recent weeks, touching 0.45% on October 1 before briefly loosening to around 8% to 9% mid-week and then snapping shut again on October 7. Cost to borrow has climbed to 7.2%, up roughly 70% from a month ago. Short interest itself has grown another 5% over the past week to around 2.47 million shares, and is up more than 110% over the past month. The ORTEX short score is 73.7 out of 100, near the top of its recent range. Taken together, the borrow market is as constrained as it has been all year, making new short positions expensive and existing ones costly to maintain into a binary event.
The Street is leaning the other way. Analyst sentiment is uniformly bullish, and target-price momentum has been running hot. Needham raised its target this week to $28 from $25, maintaining its Buy rating. Canaccord Genuity lifted to $26 from $21 earlier this week. Roth Capital and Needham had already moved targets up in mid-September. Every analyst who has acted on the stock since coverage was initiated in May 2026 holds a Buy or Overweight rating, with the consensus mean target around $24.25, roughly 12% above the current price of $21.62. The bull case rests on Elmet's status as the only fully integrated US producer of tungsten and molybdenum products, the $450 million Department of War investment supporting a fivefold increase in tungsten powder capacity, and a 38% jump in backlog to $96.3 million in 2025. The bear case centres on commercial revenue having fallen 8% in 2025, margin pressures from higher tungsten input costs, and slow expected revenue ramps in 2026 and 2027 that could keep results uneven near-term. The P/E has expanded to 33.6x, up more than seven turns over the past month, reflecting the 29% one-month price gain.
Ownership is notably concentrated in a small number of hands. George Schott holds around 17% and Peter Anania around 9%, with both filings made as passive Schedule 13G disclosures. Needham Investment Management, which also rates the stock a Buy, added a new position of 2.64 million shares as of June 30. Bangor Savings Bank and BlackRock both entered or added positions as of September 30. Wasatch Advisors and Citadel each established new positions as of June 30. With insider float concentrated among a handful of individuals and institutions building, the tradeable float remains thin, which amplifies the borrow squeeze dynamic already in evidence.
Earnings history is limited but notable. The last print, on August 28, produced a one-day move of minus 9.2%, giving back the gains from the August 13 release, which itself jumped 11.1% on the day before fading 1.5% over the following week. The pattern points to sharp day-one reactions in both directions, with gains proving harder to sustain.
With availability at its yearly low, cost to borrow at a multi-month high, short interest more than double where it stood a month ago, and every covering analyst holding a Buy into a known October 19 print, the tension between the positioning and the Street consensus is the defining question heading into next week.
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