Very Mixed Short Interest in High-Priced Leaders (AMZN, AAPL, BRK-B, BIDU, GS, GOOG, IBM, ISRG, MA, NFLX, POT, PCLN, CRM, VMW, WYNN)

Short sellers have started to come back into some select names again.  While we often look for patterns, it is some of of these high-priced stocks that often offer the most insight.  There was a very mixed bag of results when it came to these high share price leaders at the November 15 settlement date compared to the October 29 settlement date.  We put together a list with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B), Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM), Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG), Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE: MA), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT), priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN), Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM), Vmware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), and Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN).

We broke these changes out individually by the November 15, 2010 date versus October 29, 2010 settlement and we then included the percentage price change.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) 11,110,588 versus 11,961,368, -7.1%

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) 9,057,942 versus 9,004,313, +0.6%

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) 20,229,924 versus 24,220,493, -16.5%

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) 8,545,742 versus 9,719,063, -12.0%

Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) 6,897,515 versus 6,293,674, +9.6%

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) 4,630,247 versus 4,939,719, -6.3%

International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) 18,159,504 versus 17,606,377, +3.1%

Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) 2,525,328 versus 2,892,135, -12.7%

Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) 2,307,588 versus 2,840,605, -18.8%

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) 10,479,044 versus 11,016,169, -4.9%

Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT) 6,577,601 versus 5,871,250, +12.0%

priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN) 3,551,367 versus 3,064,592, +15.9%

Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) 10,734,186 versus 10,236,315, +4.9%

Vmware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) 6,100,239 versus 6,445,354, -5.4%

Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) 6,233,283 versus 6,369,356, -2.1%

Of the fifteen issues, this showed that nine of the fifteen had a drop in the short interest and six of the fifteen saw a gain in the short interest.  When you look at the double-digit gainers, it was only Potash Corp. and Priceline which counted as double-digit gainers in percentage points in the short interest while the double-digit percentage contraction in short interest was seen in Berkshire Hathaway, Baidu, and Intuitive Surgical.

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JON C. OGG