The short interest in Dell fell 6.2 million shares to 35.6 mllion shares in December. Dell fell.
What happened? A couple of things, perhaps.
Dell has brought in former American Airline CEO Don Carty to become Dell CFO and Vice Chairman. Carty has been on the PC-maker’s board. Carty is now just one step from the CEO’s throne, and current chief Kevin Rollins in on thin ice. His firing would almost certainly send the stock up, at least short term. Short term enough to worry shorts.
Dell is also seen as benefitting from Microsoft’s new Vista OS. If Vista sells 90 million units next year, as research firm IDC projects, sales of more powerful PCs to run the new system will almost certainly follow.
Good news for Dell, at last?
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.