JBL arrives at Tuesday's June 17 earnings release having already outrun analyst targets — the question now is whether the underlying business can justify a price that consensus has yet to catch.
The valuation gap is the sharpest tension heading into the print. The Street's mean price target is $359, roughly 7% below where the stock closed at $384.82. The P/E multiple has expanded to 28x, up more than a point over the past month, and EV/EBITDA has moved to 14.7x over the same stretch. Goldman Sachs carried its target to $384 in late May — essentially at-the-money — while UBS lifted to $380 last Monday but kept a Neutral rating, a pairing that captures the mood precisely: the momentum is real, conviction is not universal. Bulls are focused on the 42% projected year-over-year jump in the Regulated Industries segment and the AI infrastructure facility that management expects to generate meaningful revenue from 2027. Bears point to a 7% revenue drop in Connected Living last year, persistent softness in EV and renewable energy, and guidance that remained flat overall — making the growth story look narrow rather than broad.
Short positioning adds a wrinkle without changing the headline. SI has risen 16% over the past week and 22% over the past month, now at 2.7% of the free float — a low absolute level, but bears have been adding into strength rather than weakness, which is the detail worth watching. The lending market gives them no friction to worry about: availability is loose at over 1,080% of current short interest, meaning shares to borrow remain abundant, and borrowing costs are negligible at 0.43%. Options traders are equally untroubled — the put/call ratio of 0.79 barely moves the needle against its 20-day average, with a z-score near zero. No one in the derivatives market is paying up for downside protection.
Among peers, TTMI has gained nearly 16% on the week and AEIS is up 20%, suggesting the broader electronics manufacturing space is catching a bid. FLEX is the outlier, down about 1.5% on the week — a reminder that this is a stock-picker's environment rather than a rising tide. JBL's move has been in line with the stronger end of its peer group, which lends the price action some credibility but also raises the bar for what Tuesday's numbers need to deliver.
The print will test whether Jabil's Regulated Industries momentum is strong enough — and broad enough — to close the gap between where management is guiding and where the stock has already gone.
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