RTX Corporation faces a contradictory setup this week. The stock gained 3.5% over five days to $178.89, yet short sellers quietly rebuilt positions at the fastest pace in months — a divergence worth unpacking.
The short interest story is the most notable development this week, even if the absolute level remains modest. Short interest jumped 15.4% in a single week to 1.18% of the free float, a move that accelerated sharply after May 8. Over the past month, the short book has grown by 18.2%. These are meaningful rates of change for a name that historically sits well below 2% shorted. The borrow market, however, offers little friction to that build-up — availability remains ample, with cost to borrow at just 0.27% annually, well below recent highs. Borrow availability has loosened over the week even as shares shorted climbed, meaning new short positions face no squeeze pressure at all. The ORTEX short score of 30.7 is creeping higher — up from 29.7 a week ago — but still sits far below crowded territory.
Options traders tell a more constructive story. The put/call ratio has eased to 0.65, meaningfully below its 20-day average of 0.71 and running close to the lower end of its one-year range of 0.40–0.91. Demand for calls is outpacing puts relative to the recent norm — the z-score is -0.79 — which suggests options participants are positioned for further upside rather than hedging against a drawdown. That optimism aligns with a broader backdrop: Trump's proposed Golden Dome missile defence programme has drawn a $1.2 trillion price-tag estimate and generated fresh attention on prime defence contractors this week. RTX's Raytheon division, one of the leading missile and radar systems producers, received a new SharpSight radar order this week.
The Street remains measured rather than enthusiastic. The consensus sits at "hold" with eight hold-rated analysts and no active sell recommendations. The mean price target of $216 implies about 21% upside from current levels — a gap that looks wide given the stock is down 11% over the past month and roughly flat year-to-date at -2.5%. Analysts clustered together in April after Q1 earnings, with Morgan Stanley and UBS both trimming targets while holding their ratings. Morgan Stanley cut to $220 from $235; UBS moved to $199 from $209 while staying Neutral. Both actions came on April 22, one day after the stock shed 7.6% on earnings. The valuation compression has been real — the P/E multiple has dropped 3.6 turns over the past 30 days to around 25x, and price-to-book is down from roughly 3.88x to 3.44x over the same period. EV/EBITDA, by contrast, has been relatively stable at 16.9x. The factor profile is notable on two fronts: the analyst recommendation divergence ranks in the 98th percentile — meaning the Street is more bullish on RTX versus its own historical average than almost any comparable name — and the dividend score ranks in the 95th percentile, reflecting consistent payout growth.
Institutional holders appear stable. The top five owners — Capital Research, Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, and Dodge & Cox — collectively hold over 36% of the company. BlackRock added 3.8 million shares through April, and JP Morgan Asset Management added 2.7 million. Those flows lean constructive and partly explain why the stock has found support even after the April earnings selloff. On the insider side, the most recent disclosed activity was a cluster of executive sales in February, when CEO Christopher Calio and CFO Neil Mitchill sold a combined ~$20 million worth of shares near $204–$205. Those transactions predate the April drawdown and carry low significance scores; they are consistent with routine compensation-plan activity rather than a directional signal.
The earnings history adds useful context. The April 21 Q1 print produced a 7.6% single-day decline and a 10.3% five-day loss — the kind of reaction that has reset valuation and reset expectations. The subsequent May 8 run-up to a new quarterly earnings event on April 30 recouped about 0.7% on the day and 2.3% over the following week, a more constructive print. Closest peers LMT and LHX each gained around 2.3–2.4% on the week, broadly in line with RTX; NOC was essentially flat at -0.05%, while GE outperformed the group with a 3.8% weekly gain.
What to watch next: whether the short interest build-up continues at this clip — if it reaches the 1.5–2% range while borrow costs remain subdued, it will be worth monitoring whether the Golden Dome catalyst is drawing fresh sceptics or simply reflecting routine portfolio hedging into a still-elevated macro risk environment.
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