Elbit Enters Earnings Window With Borrow Loose and Shorts Comfortable

ESLT heads into its November 17 results with the stock up 8% on the week, short interest negligible, and the borrow market unusually relaxed for an Israeli defense name sitting near its year-high.

The clearest feature of this week's setup is how little pressure exists in the lending market. Availability runs at roughly 1,555% of short interest, meaning lenders hold more than fifteen times the shares currently borrowed, well above the 52-week low of 545%. Borrowing costs have eased too, dropping around 25% over the past month to just under 1%, after a brief spike to nearly 5% on October 13 that has since fully unwound. The borrow market is about as relaxed as it gets for this name, and nothing in the data this week suggests a build in short conviction. The ORTEX short score of 28.6, in the lower third of the universe, corroborates that picture: bears are not pressing this stock.

The Street picture is harder to read cleanly. The most recent analyst consensus data is from late August, too stale to carry confidently into a November note. What the factor scores do say is that the dividend rank sits in the 97th percentile of the universe, a standout reading, while EPS surprise ranks near the bottom at the 12th percentile, suggesting the company has not been a reliable beater of estimates in recent quarters. The EV/EBITDA multiple of around 12x has drifted modestly higher over 30 days as the share price ran up. A prior note flagged the P/E above 72x and price-to-FCF near 197x as meaningful valuation stretches relative to Western peers like L3Harris and Leidos, and that gap has not narrowed with the recent rally.

The ownership register carries one standout fact: a 13D filing remains active on ESLT. Michael Federmann, through a Schedule 13D/A filed in July 2025, holds approximately 42.4% of the company, making him the dominant controlling shareholder by a wide margin. Federmann Enterprises separately accounts for another 41.2% of shares in the institutional register. Harel Insurance Investments filed a fresh 13G on October 20, disclosing a 5.2% stake of around 2.4 million shares, a position that grew by more than two million shares since the prior report. As the disclosure note cautions, 13D/G positions are event-driven around the 5% threshold and may not reflect the current state of any holder who has since moved below that level.

The most recent earnings print is worth noting as context for November 17. When Elbit reported in August, the stock fell just under 10% on the day and held roughly that loss over the following week. That was a single data point, not a sustained pattern, but it puts a sharper edge on the current setup: the stock has rallied 14% over the past month into the report, and the prior print produced a double-digit one-day decline.

Defense peers had a broadly positive week. BA. on the LSE rose more than 7%, SAAB B gained around 6%, and RHM added roughly 2%, leaving Elbit's 8% weekly gain at the stronger end of the peer group. The one outlier was Israeli peer ASHO, which fell nearly 12% on the week, a contrast worth monitoring for any read-across on domestic demand dynamics ahead of the print.

What to watch into November 17 is whether the revenue growth rate that drove the 14% monthly rally holds up in the quarterly figures, or whether the stock repeats its August pattern of selling off on the release despite a strong underlying business.