Gerdau Results Due Today as Peers Diverge

Gerdau S.A. delivers its Q3 2026 results today with the lending market still offering no bear case, but the stock's relationship with its peer group is the more pressing question.

The short positioning picture is unchanged from yesterday's preview: borrow availability remains at its ceiling reading, the lending pool is overwhelmingly larger than any demand to borrow, and the ORTEX short score of 24.9 places GGBR4 in the 2nd percentile of the universe on short-seller interest. The days-to-cover factor rank is at the 100th percentile. None of this has shifted. What has changed slightly is the price: GGBR4 added 0.9% on Monday to BRL 25.45, recovering a fraction of last week's 1.5% decline, and is up about 1.8% over the past month.

The peer picture is mixed heading into today's number. The most correlated peer, GOAU4, was up 1.1% on Monday and is down less than 1% on the week. US steel names tell a weaker story: STLD fell 1.6% on Monday and is off 3.1% on the week, CMC is down 3.3% over the same stretch, and SSAB A has shed 5.4% in a week. RS and RYZ bucked the trend, both up on the week. The divergence among steel names reflects genuine uncertainty about near-term demand, not a sector-wide directional call.

On valuation, GGBR4 trades at 8.7x trailing earnings and 0.84x book, with an EV/EBITDA of 4.5. The earnings yield factor scores in the 85th percentile and forward EPS momentum over 12 months ranks in the 85th percentile as well, suggesting the Street's estimates have been moving higher even as the stock has drifted. The analyst consensus is stale, last updated in March, and should not be taken as a current view.

Insider activity over the past 90 days has been one-directional: controllers and directors made a series of open-market sales between August and late September, with the largest single transaction around BRL 2.5 million in mid-August. There were no open-market purchases in the same window, only a board-level buy back in June. The net 90-day figure is flat in aggregate, but the recent direction of individual trades skews toward selling at prices close to where the stock trades today.

The print will test whether Gerdau's improving forward earnings estimates are grounded in actual Q3 results, or whether the gap between a cheap-looking valuation and a drifting share price reflects something the headline multiples are not yet capturing.