FFH reports Q1 2026 results today, after the close, with the stock having pulled back 5% on the week — yet the short-selling community has been moving in the opposite direction, steadily covering rather than pressing.
The most striking feature of the positioning picture is how rapidly bears have stepped back. Short interest peaked near 0.84% of the free float in late March and has since declined to 0.67% — a drop of nearly 18% over the past month. That unwind accelerated sharply in the second week of April, when SI fell from roughly 0.82% to 0.71% in a single session on April 7. The ORTEX short score of 29 — ranking in the 78th percentile for low short pressure among its sector peers — reinforces the picture: this is not a heavily shorted name, and the conviction among bears has been ebbing, not building.
The borrow market tells the same story from a different angle. Availability is exceptionally loose, with utilisation barely above 2% against a 52-week high of 9.76%. Cost to borrow has eased to 0.52% annually — down 36% over the past month — after briefly spiking to 1.46% on April 27, which appears to have been a single-day anomaly that quickly reversed. With this much slack in the lending pool, there is no structural constraint on new short positions; the lack of short activity reflects disinterest rather than difficulty. Closest peer on the TSX gained 0.7% on the week, while fell 5.6% — roughly in line with FFH's own weekly move.
Valuation offers an interesting subplot ahead of the print. The P/E multiple has drifted down to 11.2x, having compressed 0.6x over the past seven days and 0.3x over the month. Price-to-book sits at 1.23x, also softer over the week. At these levels, the stock trades at a modest premium to book for a name that has compounded book value per share at a high rate over many years — a relative discount compared to where the stock has traded recently.
On the Street, the analyst picture is quiet. No recent rating changes appear in the data, though a target-price lift to C$2,261 was noted in late April from one source — which, at a roughly 3.6% discount to the current price of C$2,346, implies the stock has already traded through at least one published target. The mean consensus target of approximately C$1,988 looks materially stale against the current price and likely reflects older estimates that have not been refreshed; treat that figure with caution. Factor scores are mixed: 90-day EPS momentum ranks at the 75th percentile, and the EV/EBIT factor scores in the 76th percentile, suggesting the earnings quality argument remains intact. Forward EPS growth, however, ranks at just the 5th percentile — a flag that the growth narrative is not driving the bull case here.
Insider activity adds context. A cluster of director open-market purchases emerged on March 24-25, with five board members buying in a narrow price range around C$2,335-C$2,342. The amounts were small — a combined handful of shares — but the breadth of participation across multiple independent directors, including Benjamin Watsa (son of founder Prem Watsa), is a signal worth noting. On the other side, a Vice President sold 436 shares in late March, and a subsidiary president sold a more material 3,772 shares at approximately C$1,672 in mid-March — though that price appears inconsistent with current levels and may reflect a vesting or conversion event. Prem Watsa himself remains the dominant anchor, holding 8.97% of shares outstanding with a modest addition reported in the most recent filing.
The Q1 result, released after today's close, is therefore the fulcrum. Recent earnings reactions have been modest — the April 16 event produced a 2.5% one-day move and a 3.3% five-day follow-through, while the February print was essentially flat. With shorts continuing to step away, borrow costs benign, and the stock having already dipped 5% on the week, the print's interaction with the question of whether book value growth has kept pace with the recent price appreciation is the number worth watching.
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