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Investing

The Shorts Get Out Of Banks And Into Tech (C)(WFC)(WB)(BAC)(MBI)(AIG)(INTC)(MSFT)(ORCL)(DELL)(QCOM)(SIRI)(F)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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AngrybearFor the period ending October 15, short sellers got out of most banks and brokerage stocks. That is a shame for them. They could have made a killing this week.

The short interest in Citigroup (C) fell over 5% to 116.8 million shares. Probably due to its purchase by Wells Fargo (WFC) shares sold short in Wachovia (WB) dropped by 54% to 91 million. Short interest in Bank of America (BAC) dropped 14% to 94.1 million. Short interest in MBIA (MBI) fell 21% to 62 million.

The government bailout did not do much for AIG (AIG) is was the only big financial to see a sharp increase in shares sold short, up up 11% to 93.7 million.

Short sellers put their money into tech shares. Intel (INTC) saw its short interest up a fraction to 77.8 million.Shares short in Microsoft (MSFT) moved up 13% to 69.3 million. The short interest in Dell (DELL) moved up 18% to 40 million. Orcacle’s (ORCL) short interest was up 8% to 32 million. Shares short in Qualcomm (QCOM) moved up 24% to 21.8 million.

To no one’s surprise, shares short in Sirius (SIRI) jumped 17% to 232 million and the short interest in Ford (F) rose 8% to 295 million.

Data from NYSE 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.

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