Short Selling Very Mixed In Oil Companies (BHI, CVX, XOM, HES, MRO, SLB, HAL, NOV, RIG, VLO)

As you will see below, there were many key changes to short sales in oil stocks.  Some of these would have been expected to have gone up because oil was so weak.  But there were many surprising gains as well.  Here are the mid-September short sale numbers:

COMPANY (TICKER)                      Sep 15       Aug 29     Change
Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI)              6,133,690    6,061,556     1.19%
Chevron Corporation (CVX)           22,795,662   20,202,281    12.84%
Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM)    31,416,108   29,473,462    6.59%
Hess Corporation (HES)               4,447,432    4,382,553     1.48%
Marathon Oil Corporation (MRO)   7,261,748    5,969,911     21.64%
Schlumberger N.V. (SLB)            14,953,601   13,375,004    11.80%

COMPANY (TICKER)                      Sep 15       Aug 29      Change
Halliburton Company (HAL)          30,099,107   38,571,133   -21.96%
National Oilwell Varco (NOV)        7,514,971    7,778,930     -3.39%
Transocean Inc (RIG)                  13,948,428   14,367,494    -2.92%
Valero Energy Corp. (VLO)          14,846,937   15,028,560    -1.21%

Jon C. Ogg
September 25, 2008