ICL Group heads into its May 13 Q1 2026 earnings call carrying one of the sharpest month-long rallies in the specialty chemicals sector — and markets flagging implied moves of more than 17% around the print.
The stock added 6.2% on May 8 and is up 19% across the past month, closing at $6.37. Options positioning reflects that energy. The put/call ratio edged up to 0.049, slightly above its 20-day average and running about 1.6 standard deviations elevated — not extreme panic, but a mild tilt toward protection as the stock runs hot. That backdrop is consistent with a market hedging a position it still believes in rather than one bracing for collapse. On the borrow side, the lending market remains relaxed. Availability is wide, with borrowing demand at the 52-week high on utilization metrics but still representing just 23% of the pool — plenty of room for incremental shorts without a squeeze. Cost to borrow has crept up to 6.5%, about 11% above where it was a week ago, but is not yet pricing in meaningful stress.
The bullish case rests on re-rating, not just recovery. The P/E multiple has expanded about 2.8 points over 30 days to nearly 16x, and the P/B ratio is up 0.24 points over the same window. ORTEX stock scores underline the divergence: the value score remains high at 67.6 and the growth score a solid 64.2 — both top-quartile for the sector — while momentum has climbed to 46 from the high-30s in mid-April as price action caught up with fundamentals. The forward EPS growth factor ranks in the 76th percentile, and the dividend score in the 84th. Fitch reaffirmed its BBB- rating with a stable outlook on April 30, removing one potential negative catalyst. Bears, however, can point to the EPS surprise factor at just the 9th percentile — the company has rarely beaten estimates — and the 90-day EPS momentum ranking in the 18th percentile, suggesting forward estimates have actually been drifting lower.
Ownership is concentrated but stable. Israel Corporation holds 43.9% of shares and has not moved that position in recent reporting. Israeli institutional names — Migdal, Meitav, Altshuler Shaham — have collectively been adding. Norges Bank built a position of 1.65% of shares as of December, a 20-million-share addition. Arrowstreet, by contrast, trimmed by 2.3 million shares. On the peer comparison, MOS fell 3.1% on the day ICL gained 6.2% and is down 4.1% on the week — a notable divergence that suggests some of ICL's move may carry idiosyncratic tailwinds beyond sector rotation alone. The most recent comparable earnings print, in early May, saw the stock gap 7% higher on the day. The two prints before that produced declines of 5.2% and 6.7% in the first session, with the latter extending to nearly 12% over five days.
The Q1 report is therefore less about whether the broader fertilizers cycle is improving and more about whether ICL can show EBITDA and margin progress that justifies a P/E re-rating that has already run ahead of the earnings revision cycle.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open ICL on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
