The short interest in Sirius Satellite Radio has now gone up six of the last seven months. In November, the figure hit 148.3 million shares up 4%. The number of trading days needed to cover the position based on the daily average at SIRI is nearly four.
After several bad months in the market Sirius is back above $4, but it traded near $8 last November. At least a healthy number of shorts think it is going lower again. Bank of America recently said that its research indicates that retail sales of satellite radios are slowing. Siruis relies more on retail outlets than competitor XM does B of A has a "neutral" rating on SIRI. No wonder.
Perhaps short sellings were willing to bet that a poor holiday season was in the cards. If so, it looks like they may have bet right.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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