S&P 500
7,226.20
+0.01%
Dow Jones
49,494.60
-0.62%
Nasdaq 100
27,685.40
+0.66%
Russell 2000
2,804.78
-0.02%
FTSE 100
10,364.50
0.00%
Nikkei 225
59,260.50
-0.78%

Investing

Nasdaq Short Interest: Big Bets Against Financials And Tech

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

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

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Fed’s Rate Freeze Could Sting for Social Security Recipients
Maurie Backman |

Fed’s Rate Freeze Could Sting for Social Security Recipients
'Convert $100,000 a Year to Get Them to the Top of the 22%': The Roth Plan for a Couple With $2.3M in 401(k)s
Jeremy Phillips |

'Convert $100,000 a Year to Get Them to the Top of the 22%': The Roth Plan for a Couple With $2.3M in 401(k)s

Continue Reading

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Nasdaq Short Interest Mid-December (LVLT)(SIRI)(INTC)(CSCO)

Based on figures for short interest in Nasdaq stocks at mid-December, traders increased their bets against a number of discount…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Rising Nasdaq Short Interest Show Big Bets Against Tech

Rising short interest in tech stocks traded on Nasdaq shows the extent to which investors are willing to bet against…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Nasdaq Short Interest: Big Bets Against Tech And Telecom

The short interest for stocks traded on the Nasdaq as of February 15 shows that investors made very big bets…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Short Sellers Move Into Yahoo! (YHOO), Exit Sirius (SIRI)

A look at short interest for stocks traded on the Nasdaq as of May 30 show that traders moved into…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Nasdaq Short Interest: Betting Against Tech (INTC)(YHOO)(LVLT)(ORCL)(MSFT)

Nasdaq short interest on January 15 shows that investors were willing to make big bets against tech share prices. The…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Nasdaq Short Interest Rises In Tech And Communications Stocks

The short interest in many Nasdaq-traded tech and communications stock rose sharply according to figures from November 30. They compare…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Shorts Flee Financials, Attack Industrials And Tech

Short sellers jumped out of major financial shares but piled into the stocks for major industrial firms based on data…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Nasdaq Short Interest (LVLT)(MSFT)(SIRI)(INTC)

Below is the short interest for selected stocks traded on the Nasdaq. The figures are as of September 28 and…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

NASDAQ Short Sellers Back Off Tech (INTC)(DELL)(YHOO)(JAVA)

According to NASDAQ figures on short selling on February 29, share sold short in tech companies dropped sharply, an indication…

Top Gaining Stocks

Cboe Global Markets
CBOE • Vol: 1,568,143
New Pluto Global
PSKY • Vol: 12,285,993
Seagate Technology
STX • Vol: 7,378,346
Oracle
ORCL • Vol: 26,317,675
Datadog
DDOG • Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ • Vol: 4,367,433
Clorox
CLX • Vol: 13,260,523
Stryker
SYK • Vol: 4,519,455
Mohawk Industries
MHK • Vol: 1,859,865
Amgen
AMGN • Vol: 3,818,618