Short Sellers Bet Big Against Sirius And Starbucks

Investing

Published: May 26, 2010 4:51 am

Last Updated: May 26, 2010 10:11 am

The bets made for and against banks and tech companies were mixed for the period ending April 14. Short selling showed no particular pattern for the two huge industries.

Shorts were out in force, however, betting against companies which have experienced earnings and stock market success. High on this list were Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX), which had a 40% increase in shares short to 10.7 million shares, and Sirius XM Radio Inc., (NASDAQ: SIRI) which had a 30% increase to 209.1 million shares short.Other major companies that had large increase short bets included Adobe System Incorporated (NASAQ: ADBE), which is in a fight with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) over video formats. Its short interest rose 37% to 11.1 million shares. Shorts also took a large position in N0.2 chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD), up 25% to 51.8 million.

Short seller decreased their bets against a number of other large companies. The short interest in Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S), which is in the midst of rolling out its WiMax 4G network, fell 19% to 109 million shares. Shares short in Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), which is gaining back handset share with its Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-based phone, watched its short interest fell 23% to 41.8 million. Share short in handset rival Nokia NYSE: NOK) dropped 17% to 72.6 mill;ion shares.

Shorts pulled out of several large tech firms. The short interest in NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) fell 29% to 23.3 million shares. Share short in Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) fell 24% to 25.3 million despite the fact that CEO Larry Ellison sold some of his position. Shares short in Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) fell 11% to 51.2 million. Shares sold short in Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) fell by 11% to 40.3 million. And the short interest in Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) dropped 6% to 66 million

Data from NYSE and NASDAQ.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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