After a rough first two months of the year for the markets, things finally started to look up in March, though plenty of uncertainty remained. And interest in the most heavily shorted stocks traded on the Nasdaq rose, for the most part, between the February 29 and March 15 settlement dates. Leading that trend was Intel, with a double-digit increase in the number of its shares sold short. On the other hand, Frontier Communications bucked that trend, allowing Sirius XM to reclaim the title of the most shorted Nasdaq stock.
Note that the four most shorted Nasdaq stocks all had more than 120,000 shares short by the end of the period.
The approximately 165.83 million Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) shares short by the middle of March was less than 5% higher than on the previous settlement date. That was the highest level of short interest in the past year, and it was 8.6% of the company’s float. At the current average daily volume, it would take more than four days to cover all short positions. Looking for growth, Sirius has been turning its attention to the used car market. The share price ended the two-week period about 5% higher, though it has retreated about 2% in the past week. The stock ended Thursday at $3.87 a share, in a 52-week range of $3.29 to $4.20.
After rising more than 3% in the previous period, the short interest in Frontier Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: FTR) dropped about as much again, coming in at more than 164.47 million shares on the most recent settlement date. That was 14.2% of the telecom’s float. The days to cover grew to about eight as the average daily volume fell from a year-to-date high. Citigroup downgraded Frontier to Sell early this month. Shares ended the short interest period down more than 5%, while the Nasdaq rose a little more than 1% in that time. The share price still is up almost 13% year to date. The stock closed most recently at $5.27, within a 52-week trading range of $3.81 to $7.50.
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