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The 6 Most Shorted Nasdaq Stocks: Apple Roller-Coaster Continues
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After piling on Apple in the previous period, short sellers appeared to change their minds in the heart of the holiday shopping season. Its short interest plunged again between the November 30 and December 15 settlement dates, while moves in the rest of the most heavily shorted stocks traded on the Nasdaq were modest and mostly positive.
Note that the four most shorted Nasdaq stocks all had more than 100,000 shares short by the middle of the month.
After rising around 4% in the previous period, the short interest in Frontier Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: FTR) added more than 4% more to come in at around 170.65 million shares by mid-December. That was 14.7% of the telecom’s float. The days to cover dropped to less than 13 as the average daily volume increased. Frontier received final approval of its Verizon asset purchase in December, and shares ended the short interest period more than 9% lower. That compared to a less than 3% drop for the Nasdaq. The share price is down more than 26% year to date. The stock closed most recently at $4.86, within a 52-week trading range of $4.19 to $8.46.
MannKind Corp.’s (NASDAQ: MNKD) short interest, at around 111.52 million shares as of December 15, was up about 3% from the prior settlement date, when the fewest shares were short since April. The most recent reading was 43.6% of the total float, and the days to cover was about 19. Short sellers watched the share price tumble more than 31% in early December. It is now down more than 70% year to date to $1.53, and hit a multiyear low of $1.38 recently. The 52-week high of $7.88 was from last February.
More than 95.22 million Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) shares were sold short as of the most recent settlement date. That was more than 7% higher than at the start of the period, it totaled 2.0% of the company’s float and it was the third period in a row of short interest of less than 100 million. It would take more than four days to cover all short positions. Intel is a top dividend pick at Merrill Lynch, but it ended the two-week period less than 2% higher. Shares closed most recently at $34.98, down less than 3% year to date. The stock has traded between $24.87 and $37.74 per share in the past year.
Rounding out the top 10 were Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN), Mattel Inc. (NASDAQ: MAT) and Mylan Inc. (NASDAQ: MYL). As mentioned, the big mover here was Apple, with a more than 31% drop in the number of its shares held short. But short interest in Mattel shrank by 10% as well. And note that if short sellers continue to move on Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), it may show up among the top 10 shorted Nasdaq stocks before long.
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