Short selling is seen for many reasons, but universally traders tend to track short selling to track the biggest changes in the short interest twice each month. Whether these are hedges, forward delivery trades, or just raw short sales, the trend is generally viewed as a bet against the overall market. During the month of February, we saw short selling increase at both the NASDAQ and at the NYSE. And it turns out that the short selling increased against more Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B, BRK-A) stocks than those short positions which were lightened up.
The total NYSE short interest rose by 3.78% to 14,002,613,200 shares versus 13,492,652,518 shares in the period ending January 29, 2010. NASDAQ short interest was up 4.75% to 7,019,657,092 shares versus 6,701,137,021 shares ending January 29, 2010. It turns out that the best against Warren Buffett’s core holdings were frequently far higher than these short interest averages.
- Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A) was 14,752 shares, up 98% from 7,452 shares;
- Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-B) was 29,538,177 shares, up 101% from 14,698,348 shares.
The bets against Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway were likely left over arbitrage plays or more importantly were index addition bets that the stock would drop after it was added to the S&P 500 index. We took a look here at the few first that actually saw a decrease in the short selling. These are Buffett stocks which saw traders making lower bets against his portfolio stocks as follows: