GFL Heads Into Earnings Week With Shorts in Retreat

GFL Environmental Inc. reports Q3 results on October 28 with short sellers cutting positions at their sharpest monthly rate in years, leaving the lending market looser than it has been in months.

The most striking shift in the data is how rapidly shorts have pulled back. Short interest has fallen roughly 29% over the past month, now representing just 1.7% of free float. That is a low absolute level by any standard. The week-on-week reading nudged up about 5%, but that follows a steep decline and the overall direction of travel is clear: short conviction on GFL has ebbed materially since September, when shares outstanding on loan ran closer to 8.4 million. Borrow conditions confirm this. The cost to borrow has dropped 36% on the week to just 0.52%, and availability, at 441% of short interest, is the loosest in the 30-day window. With more than 153 million shares available to lend against a short book of fewer than 6 million, there is no meaningful pressure on existing shorts and no friction preventing new ones from entering if sentiment turns.

The Street picture is complicated by stale data. The analyst consensus price target on record is around CAD 36, compared with a current price of CAD 62.46, a gap that is almost certainly an artefact of outdated information rather than genuine analyst bearishness, so that figure should be set aside entirely. What the factor scores do say is that GFL carries a very low EPS surprise rank (4th percentile), meaning the company has not habitually beaten estimates, a fact worth holding in mind ahead of October 28. The EV/EBITDA multiple of about 10.2x has compressed slightly over the past month, falling roughly 0.2 turns, and the PE of around 51x reflects a stock priced for continued earnings recovery rather than current profitability. The 90-day EPS momentum factor scores in the 83rd percentile, suggesting that forward estimates have been revised upward meaningfully in recent months. Waste management peers had a strong week. WCN gained more than 10% and WM added 9.4%, while GFL itself rose 2.8%, a relative underperformance against its closest correlated names on the TSX listing.

Institutional ownership provides some context for the stock's support structure. BC Partners remains the dominant holder at roughly 17% of shares, a position unchanged in the latest filings. FMR (Fidelity's US arm) added 2.9 million shares in the quarter to September 30, and BlackRock added over 5.5 million shares in the same period. Those are material additions from large institutions. Maverick Capital also built a meaningful position over the summer, adding 6.4 million shares as of June 30. On the activist register, there are no Schedule 13D filings, meaning no holder is on record with an activist intent. GFL Borrower Luxembourg, the BC Partners vehicle, disclosed a stake of 22.1% in its February filing, down from 24.9% previously, consistent with ongoing secondary distribution over time. All stakes are as last disclosed around the 5% threshold, and holders dropping below 5% may exit without a further filing.

The two prior earnings prints in the data both saw positive reactions. The July 2026 result produced a 5.2% one-day gain and a further 4.4% over the following five days. An earlier print in the same quarter showed a smaller 2.2% one-day move. The directional pattern has been favourable, though the sample is small and GFL's low EPS surprise rank is a counterweight to any assumption that beats are routine.

The key question for October 28 is whether the strong forward estimate revisions captured in the 90-day EPS momentum score translate into an actual beat, or whether GFL's historical tendency to miss sets up a more cautious reaction from a market that has already priced in recovery.