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Investing

NYSE Short Interest Hits Record Led By Huge Increases In Financials

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The short interest on the NYSE hit an all-time record for the period ending February 29. Figures by company compare to shares sold short on Ferbruary 15.

Financial firms had significant increases in short interest. At Citigroup (C) the number rose 25.8 million shares to 118.6 million. At Wells Fargo (WFC) the figure moved up 12.3 million to 108.8 million. At Wachovia (WB) short interest jumped 6.3 million shares to 103.2 million. At Fannie Mae shares short rose 14.7 million to 66.5 million.At Freddie Mac (FRE) short interest soared 13.4 million to 53.5 million.

Shares short in telecom companies AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ), and Qwest (Q) also rose by a significant margin.

Largest Short Positions

Company                                       Shares Short

Ford (F)                                         228.6 million shares short

Washington Mutual                        152.9 mllion

Citigroup                                       118.6 million

Wells Fargo                                  108.8 million

Wachovia                                     103.2 million

Countrywide (CFC)                        102.3 million

Qwest                                           98.4 million

AMD (AMD)                                   93.4 million

Micron (MU)                                   89.0 million

Home Depot (HD)                           66.7 million

Fannie Mae                                   66.5 million’

GM (GM)                                      66.5 million

EMC (EMC)                                  65.8 million

Largest Increase In Short Position

Company                                      Increase

Citigroup                                       25.8 million increase

Fannie Mae                                  14.7 million

Applied Waste                              13.5 million

Freddie Mac                                 13.4 million

Well Fargo                                    12.3 million

DH Horton                                      9.5 million

Largest Decreases In Short Position

Company                                     Decrease In Shares Short

Calpine                                        10.0 million decrease

Bank of America (BAC)                  8.1 million 

MGM                                            6.2 mllion

Delta (DAL)                                   5.6 million

Huntsman                                     5.4 million

Sprint (S)                                      5.3 million

Data from NYSE

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.

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