GE Aerospace: Analysts Cut Targets as Retail Crowd Floods In

Post-earnings analyst revisions landed hard on Wednesday. Four firms lowered their price targets on GE Aerospace the same morning, all while keeping their ratings intact.

JP Morgan's Seth Seifman cut to $375 from $400. RBC Capital's Ken Herbert did the same. Morgan Stanley moved to $375 from $400. Susquehanna trimmed to $400 from $430. Every one of them held their bullish rating, Overweight, Outperform or Positive, but the direction of travel was uniform: targets down 6 to 7% in a single session.

The stock closed at $299.87 on October 20, down 3.7% on the day and 2.5% over the week. The consensus mean target now stands at $387.48, still implying substantial upside from current levels, but the gap between where analysts want to be and where the stock is sitting has widened since the print.

Options Turned Protective After the Results

Before earnings, GE's options market was unusually call-heavy. The put/call ratio on October 19 hit 1.21, roughly 3.5 standard deviations above its 20-day mean of 0.92, near the highest reading since early 2026. By October 20 the PCR pulled back to 1.08, still elevated versus the 20-day average and 1.7 standard deviations above it. The 52-week high on the PCR stands at 1.22, so the two-day cluster represents genuine options-market anxiety rather than routine hedging.

Retail Attention Spikes

Wikipedia views and ORTEX stock page traffic combined are running 3.17 standard deviations above their own 90-day average as of October 21. That puts retail attention at one of the most elevated readings the dataset has captured for this stock. It is attention, not a revenue or earnings indicator, but the spike coincides with a news cycle dominated by the analyst cuts and post-earnings price weakness, suggesting new audiences are arriving at the story rather than informed holders adding conviction.

Short Sellers Held Their Ground

The short book, which collapsed from roughly 16.3 million shares to 12.3 million in a single session on October 9, has not been rebuilt. Short interest as of October 20 sits at 1.16% of free float, essentially flat on the week and down 23.7% over the past month. Borrow availability remains effectively unlimited, with more than 700 million shares available against a short position of roughly 12.3 million. The cost to borrow is 0.47% APR, up 33.7% over the past month in percentage terms but still near the bottom of any meaningful range.

Data Summary

• Price: $299.87, down 3.7% on October 20, down 2.5% on the week
• Analyst targets cut: JP Morgan $375, RBC $375, Morgan Stanley $375, Susquehanna $400 (all October 21)
• Consensus mean target: $387.48
• Put/call ratio: 1.08 (October 20), 20-day mean 0.93, z-score 1.7; October 19 reading was 1.21, z-score 3.5
• Short interest: 1.16% of free float, down 23.7% over 30 days
• Borrow availability: effectively unlimited; cost to borrow 0.47% APR
• Retail attention: 3.17 standard deviations above 90-day average (Wikipedia views + ORTEX page traffic, as of October 21)
• Buyback spend: up 22% on Q2 last year, per SEC EDGAR XBRL filings