TFI International Reports Today as Peers Face Heavier Short Pressure

Among the North American trucking names most closely correlated with TFI International, short positioning is meaningfully more crowded elsewhere. ODFL fell 7.3% on Wednesday and has dropped 8.2% over the past week. SAIA lost 4.8% on the day. Against that backdrop, TFI's 2.3% of free float in short interest looks modest. The stock itself slipped 2.5% over the past week, holding up better than the peer median of roughly 3.8%.

TFI's own short-side history adds context. Borrowed shares doubled from roughly 920,000 in early October to just under 1.93 million, a move that was already well-documented heading into yesterday's originally scheduled release. That position has been stable over the past week, with daily readings clustering between 1.92 and 1.93 million shares since October 20. The borrow market remains unconstrained: availability runs at roughly 7,057% of short interest, with around 58 million shares available against fewer than two million borrowed. Cost to borrow has edged down to 0.57%, well below October's brief spikes above 1.3%. The ORTEX short score is 34.1, near the middle of the universe.

Valuation offers a cleaner read on where disagreement sits. The P/E has compressed about 1.5 points over the past 30 days to roughly 15x, and EV/EBITDA has eased modestly to 8.4x. Those are not stretched multiples for a company whose 12-month forward EPS growth ranks in the 93rd percentile of its universe, but the EV/EBIT factor score sits in the 27th percentile, a reminder that debt-adjusted returns on capital remain a point of contention. FIL Limited trimmed its stake from 6.9% to 5.8% in its last disclosure, while Caisse de Depot raised its position from 6.9% to 8.6% earlier this year. Insider activity through August was modestly net negative over 90 days, though transaction sizes were small.

The level to watch is whether short interest holds at its current plateau or begins to unwind. A break back below 1.3 million borrowed shares would signal that the pre-earnings position has been covered. The print will test whether TFI's margin profile and volume trends justify the relative resilience it has shown against a peer group under visible selling pressure this week.