Short Interest by Sector: Consumer Discretionary Leads
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As reported last week, short interest on the New York Stock Exchange rose to a record high last month to 14.4 billion shares. Looking at the S&P 500 and its ten sectors, we calculated the percentage of each stock's float that was sold short. For the S&P 500 as a whole, the average stock in the index has 5% of its float sold short.
Not surprisingly, the Consumer Discretionary and Financials have the highest percentage of their floats sold short (8.12% and 6.11% respectively). Sectors with the lowest short interest include Utilities and Industrials (3.10% and 3.27% respectively).

On an individual stock basis, below we highlight stocks in the S&P 500 with over 15% of their float sold short. Not surprisingly, the list is dominated by stocks in the Consumer Discretionary and Financial sectors. One name on the list where the shorts are having a very good day is Bear Stearns (BSC). The stock, which has 18.6% of its float sold short, is down over 10% today on liquidity concerns at the company.
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This article has 34 comments:
Democrats have put me in the position to hold 400,000 plus shares of this outstaning company. Sorry for the emotion, but this so reminds me of Reagan-omics.
(Disclosure)The entire post was sarcasim.
This is how they want the average investor to think and they plan on continuing this non-sense. Buy us out at a bargain bottom basement sale... again you big boys ...I have a bridge too sell you in Bagdad.
Remember April fool's is right around the corner.
I remain Short guy
My point exactly.. done with you ... next.
My two cents.
One more thing: SEC investigator confirmed that they would monitor any allegation of price suppression. Good enough for me.
Your hypothesis is interesting. I too was just watching this etfc deal as I put a sell at 3.94. I will pick up in two days. I think the price will drop again before we break 4. But here is the deal, every time I saw the price come close to my call, I saw a blocks of 100K+ shares come up. WTF? Right now there is 100K shares on the block. I have never seen that with ETFC. Your right, there is price supression happening here.
In any case, don't worry about my sale, I am coming back in when it drops back down to 3.50-3.70 range. + I am still long on other shares.
I think yeserdays action was interesting in that ETFC didn't hardly even move. I thought for sure that ETFC would have bounced to well above 4 by today. In fact, my sell was for 4.17. The only reason I sold as I think it is going to go down either tomorrow or friday. Jan's readings were read on 2/13 so I expect Febs will be out this week.
I just think there will be another big sell off this week before any big news comes out.
I really think we should have seen a bigger bounce in ETFC yesterday. CFC went from 4.36 to 5.11. CFC. Yeah, that big monster in serious trouble. ETFC just has to get rid of some pesky little interest rate (12.5%) and do something about writedowns and it should bounce quickly back to 15$. Yesterday should have given that hope a reality check for the positive.
Something is amiss here.
Don't pull out too quick there short seller. Don't do anything rash.
WORST case scenario is that the price is being hammered to prepare for the Feb report which is bad so as shareholders don't see an amazing one day drop.
I am just going to keep a very keen eye on sales and and performance in the next few days. You are right, somethingis going on here, and I am going to stick it out but I do not have as much as you to loose.
Remember, the stock will bounce.
The stock will bounce.
Being rash is why the market takes bad turns, you know that and I know that. Go back and read my last comment on the other article, you now, the one where I talk about etfc and peers. I still believe that.
Think before you act here. Big money comes with some risk and sweat on the brow.
look at the insider trades and the pricing in January. I think they were at 4.01 and 4.06 respectively.
I will look for the numbers and report.
On 462M shares, not exactly what I would call I big deal.
I thought it was more. My mistake.
I would be curious however to see what Laytons deal says. Did he get an upfront promise of big share stake? Don't have time to dig, anyone got that info?
Sorry, that I did not hold on , but the bastards that pushed me out are the ultimate victors. I refuse to go back to Reagan-omics. The writing on the wall is there for the buy-out and I conceded to my stop that I placed several months ago. Good luck too all.
I remain,
Shorter that I was three months ago.
I cut off the arm to stop the bleeding.
I remain,
Shorter that I was three months ago.
That move by the Fed. saved Thornburg from a hostile take over and pulled them from the ashes. Thornburgs own wealth is on the line and I'm sure he'll do what ever it takes to get this stock back where it belongs. I anticipate a few ungrades on hump day with the announcement of TMA metting their obligations. Good job Fed. keep it up!
At the Time of the post $1.56
Closed at $2.88
After hours currently $ 2.93
Now all you people stop with the panic selling!
it's getting old, including you Daffy.
that was a well thought out play.
OK, now that I am getting old . . . I am going to get back to buying here in the morning.
Just a little sub-prime mess round two hitting right now it's a mess. This company's former ceo did a great disservice to it's shareholders, a solid company that invested into sub-primes will be the final nail in the coffin. I hate to admit it but cramer seems to be right on this call.
This is my last post regarding E-trade.
As you said, the Fed can't afford to let ET just collapse and go under. There has to be a buyer in the wings. The only question I have is when this sale will happen.