Four Auto Stocks: Short Covering and Share Price

General Motors (GM), Ford (F) and Chrysler all had trading and sales updates on Sunday. Obviously, Chrysler is not listed, so in this post, we will look at GM, Ford, Renault (RNSDF.PK) and Volkswagen (VLKAY.PK).

Currently, GM has 17.32% of its shares outstanding on loan (%SOOL), down from 33% in July. Utilisation is at 90%, which is obviously a very high amount. In the last 12 months, GM’s share price has fallen from nearly $30 to $5.

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Investors have also covered their short positions in Ford, with the %SOOL falling from 27% in July to 15% now. Utilisation is at 74%. Ford has also seen a large drop in its share price going from $8 in May to $2 now.

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In Europe, Renault, who paid a dividend in May which does not equate to short selling (please see graph) has 6% SOOL, which is up from 4% in October. Utilisation is at 30%. Just like happened to GM and Ford, Renault’s share price has decreased from 100EUR in January 2008 to 20EUR, now.

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Finally, Volkswagen, which has 5% SOOL, is down from 20% in May. Utilisation is at 28%. Aside the large spike in the price in November to 800EUR, VOW’s share price has ebbed and flowed between 200 EUR and 400EUR over the past year.

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Disclosure: None