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

Short Sellers Trash Financials And Autos (FNM)(FRE)(YHOO)(JAVA)(JNPR)(NOK)(QCOM)(GM)(F)(ETFC)(WB)(BAC)(ABK)(LEH)(MBI)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated 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.

BearRegulators may be trying to keep short sellers out of a few financial stocks, but that is not keeping large bets against most other stocks from rising.

While some of the shorts may have moved on from the "protected" stocks, as of July 15, the short interest in Fannie Mae (FNM) rose 15.7 million shares to 154.4 million. Shares short in Freddie Mac were up 23.1 million to 105.9 million.

The assault on banks and brokerages continued through the middle of the month. Shares short in Wachovia (WB) moved up 25.4 million to 260.6 million. Shares short in Bank of America (BAC) were up 32.3 million. Short interest in Ambac (ABK) rose 25.1 million to 99.3 million. Shares short in Lehman (LEH) rose 15 million to 85.3 million. MBIA’s (MBI) short interest rose 11.9 million to 80.5 million.

Regardless of the government’s take on shorting large financials, the bet against their prices is still proving to be right. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were both down about 18% today. Wachovia and Washington Mutual were both off over 12%.

Short sellers were right in smelling trouble at E*Trade (ETFC)  Shares sold short in the stock moved up 5.1 million to 132.7 million.

Gm20jpeg20imageShort sellers also saw more trouble coming in the auto industry. Shares short in Ford (F) were up 13.7 million to 330.7 million.

GM’s (GM) short interest rose 9 million to 161.9 million.

Short sellers may have gotten mixed results by jumping out of tech and telecom stocks. Shares short in TI (TXN) drop 9.7 million to 28.7 million. TI reported miserable earnings. Share short in AT&T (T) dropped 8.3 million to 37 million. Shorts got out of EMC (EMC) just in time. Short interest in the stock fell 8 million to 61.6 million.

Short sellers got burned on Qualcomm (QCOM) by adding 6.6 million shares to their 33.3 million share position ahead of the company’s settlement with Nokia (NOK).

Applelogo1_2Shares short in Apple (AAPL) rose 6 million to 25.1 million ahead of the company’s weak forecast.

In other big tech, shorts cut their positions in Sun (JAVA) by 5 million to 55.6 million, in Yahoo! (YHOO) by 5.1 million to 48.2 million, and in Juniper (JNPR) by 5.5 million to 26.4 million.

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.

52% of Americans Are Building Wealth While Ignoring Their Greatest Risk
David Beren |

52% of Americans Are Building Wealth While Ignoring Their Greatest Risk
3 Reasons Retirees Should Not Enroll in Medicare Advantage for 2026
Don Lair |

3 Reasons Retirees Should Not Enroll in Medicare Advantage for 2026

Continue Reading

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Short Sellers: Split Decision On Financials, And Bailing Out Of Tech (WM)(WFC)(WB)(BAC)(JPM)(MER)(FRE)(FNM)(MSFT)(QCOM)(DELL)(BRCM)(KFT)(GM)(AMR)

Shorts sellers suffered from a lack of conviction on the direction of financial stocks in the period that ended July…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

NYSE Shorts Move Out Of Big Banks And Into Autos And Airlines: Looking For Chapter 11?

The mid-month reports on short interest in NYSE shares showed that many short sellers moved out of big financial stocks…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Short Interest For NYSE, November 30: Big Bets Against Financials, Tech

The November 30 short interest of NYSE traded stocks shows that the market is predicting a further drop in financial…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Shorts Attack The Banks Again, But Flee Bailout Targets And Retailers

No matter how far down bank stocks go and how hard regulators try to keep short sellers out of financial…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

With Financial Stocks Off Limites, Shorts Move To Tech (AAPL)(DELL)(ORCL)(INTC)(AMD)(TXN)

The cut-off for the last short interest data was September 15, before a number of financial stocks got protection from…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

NYSE Short Interest Hits Record Led By Huge Increases In Financials

The short interest on the NYSE hit an all-time record for the period ending February 29. Figures by company compare…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Shorts Sellers Look For Sharp Sell-Off In Financials (WM)(WFC)(WB)(FNM)(AIG)

Short sellers sharply increased their bets against big US banks based on data from the NYSE as of May 30.…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Short Sellers Exit Citi, Feed On Ford

Short-sellers walked away from Citigroup (NYSE: C),dropping their position by 20% in the period that ended May 15.  They could not…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Short Sellers Make Huge Bets Against Financials, Flee Tech

Short sellers are making significant bets that most financial stocks traded on the NYSE will fall sharply. Data is as…

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