The short interest report is out for the September 15 settlement date, and here 247 Wall St. has decided to focus on the biotech sector. Short sellers are often active in biotech stocks, and we have seen some excessive short interest activity in this report. We have compared the September 15 date to the August 29 date and also looked back over the past year to cover these trends with color in each stock.
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Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ALXN) saw a minimal decline in its short interest, down to 3.77 million shares short as of September 15 from 3.86 million as of August 29. This is not off the mark in total shares short, but the days to cover reading of 3.95 remains very elevated compared to the rest of 2014 in Alexion shares.
Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) saw its short interest rise yet again — the fourth increase in a row. The September 15 short interest came to 12.166 million shares, versus 11.853 million shares short as of August 29. Amgen’s short interest is at a high not seen in at least a year.
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Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) saw a minimal short interest decline to 2.979 million shares short as of September 15. This was from 3.181 million shares short as of August 29, and the new short interest reading was the first under 3 million shares short since March.
Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ: CELG) had its short interest drop handily — more than 11%. The September 15 short interest was 12.072 million shares, versus 13.611 million as of August 29. This was still the lowest short interest since the end of March, but it is elevated prior to that.
Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) saw a massive drop of more than 17% in its short interest to 62.396 million shares short as of September 15 from 75.491 million as of August 29. This was the third decline in short interest in a row and marks a low in 2014, now that the scandals over Sovaldi pricing have abated.
Mannkind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD) saw its short interest tick up, but not by enough worth fussing over. The September 15 short interest was 74,292,867 shares, versus the August 29 short interest reading of 74,067,605 shares. Still, this remains elevated, and the reaction seems to be that MannKind did not get a good enough of a deal on its inhalable insulin partnership terms, considering the losses it took. Another observation is that this is now up to 14.33 days to cover, the highest reading since last October.
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