Friday, November 23, 2012

50 Stocks Hedge Funds Are Shorting Like Crazy

Business Insider has assembled some good data on stocks hedge funds are shorting.


The Goldman Sachs' Hedge Fund Trend Monitor report takes a close look at what the world's biggest hedge funds are trading. The report includes the Very Important Short Positions (VISP) -- stocks in which hedge funds have the most short interest outstanding.

What BI has done is pull the 50 stocks on Goldman's VISP list and ranked them by the total dollar value of short interest.

Mylan Inc: $0.7 billion of short bets.

Aetna Inc: $0.7 billion of short bets.

Progressive Corp: $0.7 billion of short bets.

Halliburton: $0.7 billion of short bets.

Lockheed Martin: $0.7 billion of short bets.

Walgreen Co: $0.7 billion of short bets.

AutoZone Inc: $0.7 billion of short bets.


NextEra Energy Inc: $0.7 billion of short bets.

Newmont Mining: $0.8 billion of short bets.

Southwestern Energy: $0.8 billion of short bets.


M&T Bank Corp: $0.8 billion of short bets

3M Co: $0.8 billion of short bets.


Eli Lilly & Co: $0.8 billion of short bets.

Moody's Corp: $0.8 billion of short bets.


H.J. Heinz Co: $0.8 billion of short bets


Time Warner Cable: $0.8 billion of short bets

Range Resources: $0.8 billion of short bets

Seagate Technology: $0.8 billion of short bets

Cerner Corp: $0.9 billion of short bets

AvalonBay Communities: $0.9 billion of short bets

O'Reilly Automotive: $0.9 billion of short bets

MetLife Inc: $0.9 billion of short bets


Deere & Co: $0.9 billion of short bets

Home Depot: $1 billion of short bets

CentruyLink: $1 billion of short bets

Sysco Corp: $1 billion of short bets

Comcast Corp: $1.1 billion of short bets

Coca-Cola Co: $1.1 billion of short bets

Oracle Corp: $11 billion of short bets

E.I. DuPont: $1.2 billion of short bets

McDonald's Corp: $1.2 billion of short bets


Pioneer Natural Resources: $1.2 billion of short bets


Merck & Co Inc: $1.2 billion of short bets

Altria Group: $1.3 billion of short bets

Time Warner: $1.3 billion of short bets

Bristol-Myers Squibb: $1.3 billion of short bets

Amgen Inc: $1.3 billion of short bets

Hewlett-Packard: $1.4 billion of short bets


Procter & Gamble: $1.4 billion of short bets

ConocoPhillips: $1.5 billion of short bets

Intuitive Surgical: $1.5 billion of short bets

Caterpillar: $1.5 billion of short bets

Wal-Mart Stores: $1.6 billion of short bets


Ford Motor Co: $1.6 billion of short bets

AT&T Inc: $1.7 billion of short bets

Walt Disney: $1.8 billion of short bets

Chevron Corp: $1.8 billion of short bets

Gilead Sciences: $2 billion of short bets

Verizon Communications: $2.1 billion of short bets

Intel Corp: $4.3 billion of short bets

Note: In addition to the absolute dollar amount being shorted, it is also important to consider the dollar amount short versus the float and full market capitalization. Further, another way to look at this list is to go contra the pros. With Bernanke pumping money aggressively, many of these stocks may surprise to the upside and with significant short-positions in the stocks, something akin to a mini-short squeeze may take place.










3 comments:

  1. True, markets move from squeeze to squeeze; so you might want to bet against the shorts. On the other hand, the funds may have other positions and be net long, and wouldn't necessarily be squeezed if the stock market rallied. So betting against the funds requires a more complex position than would be the case with many commodity positions.

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  2. Yes, it is a good thing to be short at this time; unfortunately for the bears Gilead has been rising.

    For those interested in short selling, I recommend the stocks in this Finviz Portfolio http://tinyurl.com/c8gvky5 as they are topping out.

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  3. I don't understand the O'Reilly and Autozone shorts. As the economy gets worse more people will be unable to afford new cars or expensive repair shops and will therefor do their own repairs.

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