Nasdaq Short Interest: Big Bets Against Financials And Tech

Investing

Published: November 28, 2007 4:39 am

Nasdaq released short interest in stocks listed on the exchange for the period ending November 15 compared to the numbers on October 31. Short sellers made substantial bets that some financial and tech stocks would have sharp downward corrections.

Shares sold short in E*Trade (ETFC) rose 22.2 million to 51.8 million. Short shares in the Nasdaq Stock Market (NDAQ) rose 1.9 million to 8.1 million.

Investors believe that shares in Sirius (SIRI) are going to fall. Sharse sold short in the company moved up 23.6 million to 103 million. Short sellers think Level 3 (LVLT) will continue its slide increasing short interest by 10.5 million to 150.1 million. Shares short in Microsoft (MSFT) rose 7.6 million to 108.8 million, a sign that some on Wall St. think its rally is over.

Palm (PALM) and Clearwire (CLWR) two tech stocks with big cult followings both got hit. Short interest in Palm moved up 9.3 million shares to 35 million. Clearwire, fresh off a broken joint venture with Sprint (S) saw shares sold short move up 3.9 million to 11.4 million.

On the plus side, shorts moved out of Sun (JAVA), buy reducing their interest by 23.8 million to 16 million. Yahoo! (YHOO) got a vote of confidence. Shares sold short in the stock fell 11.7 million to 54.3 million. Short sellers also reduced their interest in Intel (INTC) by 5.8 million to 70.1 million. Shorts think Comcast (CMCSA) may have bottomed, decreasing shares sold short by 6 million to 15.1 million.

Largest Short Positions

Company Shares Sold Short

Level 3 150.1 million

Micorosft 108.9 million

Sirius 103.0 million

Charter (CHTR) 100.7 million

Intel 70.1 million

Yahoo! 54.3 million

E*Trade 51.8 million

Comcast 43.8 million

Cisco (CSCO) 40.4 million

Dell (DELL) 36.6 million

Largest Increases In Short Positions

Company Increase In Shares Short

Sirius 23.5 million shares

E*Trade 22.2 million

Level 3 10.5 million

Palm 9.3 million

Microsoft 7.6 million

Clearwire 3.9 million

Largest Decreases In Short Position

Company Decrease In Shares Short

Sun 23.8 million decrease

Atmel 19.4 million

BEA Systems (BEAS) 16.4 million

Yahoo! 11.8 million

Network Appliance 8..2 million

Comcast 6.0 million

Intel 5.8 million

Data from WSJ and Nasdaq

Douglas A. McIntyre

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