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Investing

Shorts Cut Interest in Old Tech Firms

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Short sellers backed away from their gambles on old tech firms as they increased their positions in new Web 2.0 companies.

For the period that ended July 31, short sellers cut their position in Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) 10% to 83 million. The short interest in Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) dropped 15% to 44 million. Shares short in Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) declined 10% to 52 million. Shares short in Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) fell 15% to 28 million. The short interest in Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) dropped 20% to 16 million. Old tech companies, even those with only modest growth, appear to be a better gamble than the new generation of firms, at least as measured by short interest

Among the brand new public companies, the short interest in Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) was higher by 40% to 55 million — a bet that almost certainly paid off. The short interest in Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) rose 8% to 61 million — another likely winner. Only Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA) avoided the trend as its short interest fell 8% to 32 million.

Numbers for certain other widely held stocks: the short interest in Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) rose 8% to 330 million, shares short in Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) were flat at 225 million, the short interest in Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) rose 22% to 203 million, shares short in Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) were down 10% to 201 million, and short interest in Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) fell 11% to 157 million

Data from NYSE and Nasdaq.

Douglas A. McInyre

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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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