Last night after the close, short interest figures for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) were released and showed that short sales as of May 15th rose 2.34% since the end of April. Even though the S&P 500 closed at its highest level since January, short bets remain near all-time highs. This is in contrast to October when short interest was declining leading up to the market's peak, and indicates that many investors are skeptical of the current rally.
The table below lists the twenty non-Nasdaq stocks in the S&P 500 (Nasdaq short interest figures will be released on May 27th.) with the highest short interest as a percentage of float. Like last month, Consumer Discretionary and Financial stocks are well represented on the list of stocks most heavily shorted. The list of stocks on the list of least shorted come from various sectors. In fact, eight of the ten sectors are represented on this list (no Materials or Consumer Discretionary).
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If would be nice to adjust this chart by dividing the total shares sold short by the total shares outstanding.
Or dividing by monthly/quarterly/yearly avg daily volume.
cheers.
Posted by: poster | May 22, 2008 at 05:56 PM