Below are the short positions for major companies traded on the Nasdaq as of October 15. The figures compare to numbers on September 28, 2007
Traders bet big on Sun’s turnaround, dropping their short positions by over 24 million shares to 40 million. They also bet that the Oracle takeover of BEA Systems would not happen increasing shares short in BEAS by 4 million.
Shorts were right to move into Level 3 in large numbers. Its earnings were a disaster. But, they moved out of Microsoft, perhaps a sign that Wall St. is starting to believe that the company’s internet and game strategies may pay-off.
Largest Short Positions
Company Shares Sold Short
Level 3 (LVLT) 139 million
Charter (CHTR) 94 million
Sirius (SIRI) 85.1 million
Microsoft (MSFT) 75.4 million
Intel (INTC) 74.6 million
Yahoo! (YHOO) 58.1 million
Comcast (CMCSA) 45.6 million
Sun (JAVA) 40.3 million
Oracle (ORCL) 38.7 million
Symantec (SYMC) 35.7 million
Amazon (AMZN) 35.3 million
Largest Increase In Shares Sold Short
Company Increase In Shares Short
Level 3 10 million share increase
Yahoo! 6.3 million
BEA Systems (BEAS) 4 million
E*Trade 3.6 million
Charter 3 million
Largest Decrease In Short Position
Company Decrease In Short Position
Sun 24.6 million decrease
Nvidia (NVDA) 6.8 million
Microsoft 5.5 million
Comcast 4.9 million
Sandisk (SNDK) 4.6 million
Dell (DELL) 4.2 million
Oracle 2.9 million
Data from Nasdaq and WSJ
Douglas A. McIntre
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