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Investing

Short Sellers May Have Been Squeezed In Citi And GE, But Keep Record Level Positions

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Short sellers may have taken a bath in companies such as  Citigroup (C) and GE (GE), but they increased investments in many companies to record levels.

At the end of February, shares sold short in Citi rose 11% to 203 million and shares short in GE were up 10% to 183 million. Shorts wisely decreased positions in most big financial firms. At JP Morgan (JPM) shares short fell 19% to 49 million. Shares short in MetLife (MET) dropped 56% to 8 million. The short interest in Wells Fargo (WFC) dropped 7% to 116 million. Shares short in Goldman Sachs fell 17% t0 14 million.

Short interest in several large retailers also fell.  Shares short in Target (TGT) were down 23% to 31 million. Shares sold short in Home Depot (HD) dropped 5% to 60 million. At Wal-Mart (WMT) shares sold short were down 8% to 38 million.

Short sellers also lightened positions in big tech companies.  Shares short in IBM (IBM) fell 16% to 15 million Shares sold short in Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) dropped 9% to 28 million. The short interest in Intel (INTC) was down 12% to 94 million.  Shares short in Cisco (CSCO) were off 10% to 57 million. The short interest in Dell (DELL) was down 37% to 32 million. Shares short in Microsoft (MSFT) were down 5% to 87 million

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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