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Investing

Shorts Move Out Of Big Retail And Consumer Products

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Short sellers are not willing to bet that shares in large retailers or consumer products companies will go any lower. The are gambling that consumer spending has bottomed.

Shares short in Wal-Mart (WMT) moved down 21% to 40.3 million shares. The short interest in Target (TGT) dropped 15% to 39.1 million.  Shares short in Home Depot (HD) were off 8% to 59.8 million.

The short interest in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) dropped 24% to 25.6 million. Shares short in P&G (PG) dropped 17% to 30.3 million. Shares short in Coke (KO) dropped 20% to 20.5 million.

The short play on financials was mixed. Shares short in the “safest” big bank, Wells Fargo (WFC), were off 11% to 111.7 million. But, the short interest in Citigroup (C) was up 11% to 181 million. GE’s (GE) short interest moved up 17% to 168 million, probably on concerns about its financial unit.

Shorts did not make any meaningful move in or out of GM (GM) or Ford (F).

Short sellers began a move out of Big Tech.  Shares short in Intel (INTC) fell 14% to 94.6 million. The short interest in Microsoft (MSFT) was down 13% to 80.4 million. Shares short in Dell (DELL) were down 12% to 53.4 million. Shares sold short in Qualcomm (QCOM) dropped 16% to 35.1 million.

Data from NYSE and Nasdaq

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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