GM Shorts Pay 50% Annual Rate

Say you short General Motors (GM). You are selling it. You get the price in dollars in exchange for the stock you sold, currently about $4.00. Until you buy it back you get interest on that money, usually, Libor - 50 bps or something, currently about zero. But, GM is 'hard to borrow', meaning, everyone wants to short it. The current 'rebate' (argot for the interest on short sale proceeds) is negative 50% annualized! This is a stock worth $2.5B, that trades about $100MM worth a day. That means you don't earn money on your proceeds, you pay. The stock would have to fall 50% over the next year for you to break even if you shorted it.

Of course it's more complicated than that, but let me give a simple example of the opportunity. GM currently trades for $4.00. The June 2009 $4 strike put trades around $2.30, and the $4 strike call at $0.80. You can put on a June forward position in GM via options, by buying a call option, and selling the put.

Looking at Put-Call parity, we can generate the following implication. A synthetic forward position can be created by buying the call and selling the put:

Call-Put=PV(Forward-Strike)

As interest rates are near zero:

Call-Put=Forward - Strike
$0.80-$2.30=Forward - $4
Forward=$2.50

QED

Now, if you are a long term investor, why pay $4.00 for the current GM, when you can by the June forward for $2.50? If GM goes up to $5 in two years, one makes 100%, the other, 25%. The dominance of the forward doesn't get much more obvious than this.

Anyone long GM who is not capturing the huge negative rebate is leaving a lot of money on the table. They must be dancing over in Staten Island, as stock loan desks are living large because I imagine many if not most GM stockholders are not capturing this. If you like GM, buy a forward via options. If you dislike GM, know that a 50% decline is baked into the current stock price via the un-labeled stock rebate.

Comments

[Robert Wein...:]

Important article on better using your investing capital. Often selling puts makes a lot more sense than buying stock. Its less risky and you can even make money if the stock ends up at the same or near same price when the options expire.

Jan 14 10:22 AM

[Smarty_Pants:]

It would seem to me that a "better use" of your capital would be to avoid GM altogether. It's insolvent.

Why risk a huge loss when there are a lot of better run companies to consider?

Jan 14 10:37 AM

[Chris B:]

When will an online broker emerge that allows retail investors to earn short interest by lending their shares?

Also, when will an online broker emerge that allows retail investors to switch currencies and trade shares on overseas markets in that currency?

Am I missing something?

Jan 14 01:07 PM

[adAstra:]

Actually some brokerages already let people earn money by lending their shares. It's a very small percentage of retail investors though because the only cases I know are retail investors with over 30k shares. They negotiated a deal with the brokerage - I guess you just have to ask.

Jan 14 10:46 PM

[Urbane Gori...:]

Pretty neat.. Very clear article.. jegan

Jan 15 12:25 AM

[31October:]

Mr. Falkenstein has done a good deed.
Shorting GM looks like such a sure bet that a lot of people could have lost their money trying.

Jan 16 04:06 PM