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Short Sellers Exit Citi, Feed On Ford

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Short-sellers walked away from Citigroup (NYSE: C),dropping their position by 20% in the period that ended May 15.  They could not have anticipated that the Treasury would sell a huge amount of its holding in the bank, pushing Citi’s share price down. Share sold short in Citi fell to 41.5.5 million, still making it the largest short position on the NYSE.

During the same period, short sellers upped their position in Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) by 42% to 258.5 million. It may be that the concerns about Ford’s debt position are causing experts to believe that its share price will fall

Telecom stocks were hit hard by short sellers, and that was a winning bet. The short position in Nokia (NYSEL NOK) rose 18% to 90.5 million. Low margins drove the stock down 13% the day it announced earnings. The short interest n Verizon (NYSE: VZ) moved up 15% to 55.8 million. The large telecom posted a disappointing rise in its cellular customer base. The short interest in Qwest (NYSE: Q) was up by 4% to 127.4 ahead of its merger plans with CenturyTel were announced.

In general, short sellers moved against financial shares. The short interest in Bank of American (NYSE: BAC), Regions Financial (NYSE: RF),  and Ambac (NYSE: ABK) all rose. Short sellers also moves into retailers. The short interest in Walmart (NYSE: WMT) was up 12% to 24.6 million. Shares short in Lowe’s also rose sharply.

Short sellers were mixed on tech raising their position in Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) by 13% to 59 million and upping their positions in Micron (NADAQ: MU) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Shares pulled out of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), and RF Micro (NASDAQ: RFMD)

Source: NYSE and NASDAQ.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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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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