Short interest in stocks of 3D printer makers has been just as volatile as the stock price at the newly discovered next big thing. The stocks bounce higher, the shorts sell; the stocks dip lower, the shorts buy. Nothing unusual here, just a reminder that 3D printing stocks may not good candidates for a widows and orphans fund.

Hedge fund honcho Whitney Tilson on Tuesday called 3D Systems Inc. (NYSE: DDD) “one of so many unbelievably great shorts” available now. He bases his judgment on an offhand comment he got second-hand from a friend who met with 3D’s EO Abraham Reichental. Here’s the comment as reported by The Wall Street Journal:

Ya can’t make this stuff up! From a friend who met with the CEO of DDD (not some penny stock, but an $8 BILLION company): Avi told me during a 1×1 that “his company is 50% technology, 20% innovation and 30% awesomeness.”

What is the appropriate discount rate to apply to “awesomeness”?

Now whether or not Tilson can calculate an awesomeness factor is still with the jury, but until he can he thinks a company that recently lowered its earnings projections and still trades at 63x forward earnings is just looking for a jump in short interest. But things don’t always go according to script.

As of November 15th, short interest in 3D Systems comprised 20.3% of the stock’s float. That’s a drop of almost 25% from the October 31st reading and represents just under 20 million shares.

Even with short interest that high, 3D is not the most widely held short in the 3D printing sector. That honor goes to The ExOne Co. (NASDAQ: XONE) with 38.3% of its float held short as of November 15th. And that’s actually 1.2% fewer shares short than at the end of October. Some 3.9 million shares of ExOne are currently held short.

Voxeljet AG (NYSE: VJET) has only been publicly traded since mid-October, so its history is, well, a little short. After going out at $19 a share and spiking at $70, the stock has settled back to trade at around $40 for the past couple of weeks. Short interest in the stock grew by nearly 71% in the first two weeks of November, but because the stock is also listed in Europe, no number can be assigned to the percentage of shares held short. Out of 9.4 million shares floated, some 1.4 million are short.

Stratasys Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS) is the least-liked 3D printer by short sellers. Only 6.4% of the company’s float is short and short interest actually declined by 0.3% in the first two weeks of November. Analysts at BofA/Merrill Lynch raised the price targets for 3D Systems and Stratasys in mid-November, setting them up for some increased short action in the second half of November. Stratasys’s forward multiple is a rich 52.

Two relatively new entrants, Organovo Holdings Inc. (NYSEMKT: ONVO) and Camtek Ltd. (NASDAQ: CAMT), are new only because most investors just noticed them. About 12% of Organovo’s shares are held short and short interest in the bioprinting company rose more than 20% in the first two weeks of November.

Camtek, however, was relatively abandoned by short sellers in early November. Just 16,606 shares were held short, a mere 0.1% of the company’s float. That was a drop of 16.7% from the end of October, but still a very small number. Shares have jumped from under $2 to around $5 since November 18th, so look for some serious short interest changes for the last two weeks of November.

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