Unusual Short Interest Trends in High-Priced NASDAQ Favorites (AMZN, AAPL, BIDU, FFIV, FSLR, GOOG, NFLX, PCLN, QCOM, WYNN)

The April 29, 2011 short interest data is now out and there continues to be a very mixed bag as far as trends in many of NASDAQ’s high-priced leaders.  Some short selling is way up, some is way down.  We have tracked the short interest in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), Priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN), QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM), and Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN).

We compared to the short interest of April 29 to April 15 and we have added in color on each one as far as general short-selling trends and past short interest reports.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) saw a drop in shorting as the April 29 settlement date had 7.717 million shares short versus 8.26 million shares in the short interest as of April 1.  This was 9.7 million shares short earlier this year.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) saw a large gain in the short interest to 13,349,219 shares in the April 29 settlement date short interest.  At April 15 that was 11.546 million shares in the short interest versus 11.63 milllion shares at the end of March.  This is actually the highest short interest going back a full year.  The heat is on!

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) reversed what had been a large drop before.  At April 29, the short interest was 5.893 million shares versus 5.036 million the reading in mid-April.  This is still under the 5.906 million shares short at the end of March.

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV) saw a big drop of more than 17% in its short interest to 3.069 million shares at the April 29 settlement date versus 3.712 million shares short at April 15. The short selling activity in F5 is actually now at the lowest reading going back one year. 

First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) saw a 2.4% drop in the short interest after three straight increases in the short interest… The April 29 settlement date short interest fell to 15.635 million shares versus a short interest of 16.017 million shares in mid-April. 

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is seeing its short interest up 17% in two weeks.  The April 29 settlement date’s short interest was shown to be 3.969 million shares short versus 3.392 million shares short in mid-April.  The short interest in Google is now the highest reading since mid-November.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) remains a battleground stock for short sellers but the direction is not seen.  The April 29 short interest rose by lass than 1% to 10,413,424 shares short versus the April 15 short interest of 10,341,281 shares.  There is just no real observation to be made here other than that the short interest has been much lower than in mid-February.

Priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN) saw almost a 3.9% drop in the short interest to 4.03 million shares short at April 29 versus the April 15 reading of 4.193 million shares in the short interest.  The short selling activity remains elevated compared to the end of 2010.

QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) saw a huge gain in the short interest at the and of April.  The bet against Qualcomm at the April 29 settlement date was 21.99 million shares versus 18.93 million shares short on April 15.  Keep in mind that this was a short interest of 35.2 million shares in mid-February and was over 40 million shares short last September.

Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) saw another gain in the short interest.  Its April 29 settlement date showed 3.269 million shares short, up almost 11% from the April 15 reading of 2.948 million shares.  There is unfortunately no real pattern to the short interest here in Wynn.

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JON C. OGG