Major Banks: Big Drop In September Short Interest (BAC, C, JPM, WB, WFC)

It looks like short sellers decided to bail out of the money center banking stocks ahead of the FOMC decision on rates.  This is consistent with the overall trends if you look at the total exchange short interest we discussed last night on the short interest dropping on NYSE and on AMEX for the first time in months.

Here we have a small table showing the short interest dropping in all of the money center and giant U.S. banking stocks:

Bank Stock (ticker)              SEPT.         AUG.       %Change
Bank of America (BAC)    31.748M    41.285M    -23.00%
Citigroup (C)                      34.406M    40.521M    -15.10%
JPMorgan Chase (JPM)   37.516M    45.234M    -17.05%
Wachovia (WB)                   36.059M    49.889M    -27.70%
Wells Fargo (WFC)            47.395M    62.988M    -24.75%

If you average this out, it appears that the overall short interest on a raw average of percentages was a drop of 21.52% from August to September 2007.

Jon C. Ogg
September 21, 2007