Among Actively Traded Stocks, Short Interest Doubles in Apple

We have tracked the key short interest changes as of April 30 in these large cap stocks: General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: ANR), McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) and Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO).

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) short interest rose 14% to 94.25 million shares. About 0.9% of GE’s float is now short.

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) saw short interest fall by 20.8% to 206.34 million shares, about 5.5% of the company’s total float.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) short interest fell 2.1% to 164.26 million shares, which represents 1.5% of the company’s float.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) saw a 1.5% rise in short interest to 52.2 million shares, which represents about 1.8% of the firm’s float.

Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: ANR) showed a rise of 13.1% in short interest, to 33.02 million shares, about 13.4% of Alpha’s float.

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) showed a drop of 2.8% in short interest, to 11 million shares, about 15.1% of the company’s float.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) saw short interest rise by 107.2% to 41.59 million shares, or 2.4% of the company’s float.

BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY) saw short interest rise by 0.2% to 164.69 million shares, or 33.3% of the total float.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) posted a 16.3% drop in short interest, to 99.42 million shares, about 1.3% of Microsoft’s float.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) short interest declined by 7.2%, to 22.35 million shares or about 1.5% of the company’s float.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) saw short interest decrease by 2.1% to 31.58 million shares or 26% of the company’s float.

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) saw short interest rise by 1.2% to 58.7 million shares or about 1.1% of the company’s float.

The most interesting changes in this two-week period are the declines in short interest in Nokia, BlackBerry and Microsoft, as well as the concomitant doubling of short interest in Apple. That is a pretty clear indication that investors are betting that three players in the mobile sector are about to put more pressure on the sector leader.

Short interest in Dell declined for the third period in a row. It will be interesting to see if today’s offer from Carl Icahn and Southeastern Capital Management moves the needle at all. The new offer is certainly not one that cannot be refused.