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Investing

Short Sellers Flee Tech Stocks (MSFT)(CSCO)(ORCL)(JNPR)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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bearThe sharp rally in technology stocks over the past two weeks has pushed short sellers out of the market.

The short interest in Microsoft (MFST) fell 29% in the period ending May 15 to 56.5 million shares. Shares sold short in Cisco (CSCO) dropped 26% to 50.1 million. The short interest in Oracle (ORCL) plunged 26% to 37.4 million. Shares short in Juniper (JNPR) dropped 18% to 43.2 million.

Short sellers did not put consistent bets on the banking industry. Shares sold short in Citigroup (C) were flat at 1.28 billion. The short interest in Bank of America (BAC) rose 12% to 198.3million. Shares short in Wells Fargo (WFC) fell 28% to 121.7 million. The short interest in JPMorgan (JPM) was flat at 57.8 million shares.

Short sellers turned against the wireless phone equipment sector. Shares sold short in Motorola (MOT) were up 22% to 67.8 million. The short interest in Nokia (NOK) was up 34% to 26.3 million shares and the short interest in Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) rose 45% to 16,1 million.

Other notable changes in short interest included a 11% increase in shares short in Ford (F) to 138.1 million, a 20% increase in the short interest in Yahoo! (YHOO) to 51.8 million shares, a 41% increase in shares sold short in DryShips (DRYS) to 12.5 million, and a 29% drop in the short interest in Dendreon (DNDN) to 8.9 million shares.

Sources: NYSE and NASDAQ

Douglas A. McIntyre

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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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