24/7 Wall St.

It is no secret that cult stocks and controversial stocks often have an unusually high short interest.  The markets rose handily into the end of March and that has shown a substantial change in some of the short selling trends from March 15 to March 30 settlement date.

24/7 Wall St. has tracked the short selling activity in shares of the following: Alcatel Lucent S.A. (NYSE: ALU); Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC); Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN); Diamond Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: DMND); First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR); Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR); Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: HGSI); LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD); Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX); RadioShack Corporation (NYSE: RSH); Research in Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM); and Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI).

The short interest changes are for the March 30 versus March 15 settlement dates:

Alcatel Lucent S.A. (NYSE: ALU) short selling rose almost 4% to 21.33 million shares.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) showed a mere 1.4% drop despite its shares having doubled from the lows of December and the new reading was 141.1 million shares in the short interest.

Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) saw a drop of about 4.1% to 34.03 million shares in the short interest.  This is high historically.

Diamond Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: DMND) is still a battleground stock and its short interest is compressing.  The March 30 short interest was down 6.6% at 11.3 million shares.  This marks a continued lower trend.

First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) continued to get pounded but short sellers lightened up into the end of March.  Maybe they thought all the easy money had been made.  Its short interest fell4.3% to 20.3 million shares, but that was higher than some recent reports earlier this year.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) saw only a small rise of 1.8% to 25.49 million shares in the short interest and this is still higher than earlier in the year but well down from last year’s more active short selling.

Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: HGSI) saw a drop of almost 5% as sellers may have locked in gains.  The drop was down to 44.18 million shares in the short interest.

LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD) saw a decent drop of about 7.1% in the short interest at the March 30 settlement date to 4.29 million shares short.  This short interest is down about one-third from earlier in the year.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) saw a rather large short interest drop of over 15% to just over 9.2 million shares and this is down under the recent trends.

RadioShack Corporation (NYSE: RSH) posted a rather large gain in the short selling bets by 11% up to 32,881,316 shares in the short interest.  The bets continue against the company here.

Research in Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM) saw a 5% drop in its short interest to 57.28 million shares in the short interest after seeing rise after rise to more than 60 million shares short by mid-March.

Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) saw a drop of 6.6% to 287.5 million shares short, but that was down from a peak of more than 300 million shares short in mid-March.

JON C. OGG