After a rough first two months of the year for the markets, things finally started to look up in March, though plenty of uncertainty remained. And interest in almost all of the most heavily shorted stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange shrank between the February 29 and March 15 settlement dates. Except for Pfizer, that is, one of this year’s Dogs of the Dow. The number of its shares short skyrocketed during those two weeks.
Leading the downward trend were materials giants Alcoa and Freeport-McMoRan, with double-digit declines in their short interest in the first weeks of the month.
Note that the 10 most shorted NYSE stocks all had more than 120,000 shares short at the end of the most recent settlement period.
After gaining in the three previous periods, Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) short interest surged about 87% to more than 322.67 million shares in the first half of this month. That was 5.2% of the float, and by far the greatest number of shares short in at least a year. The days to cover jumped to about seven as the average daily volume increased. Pfizer was a top pick at both Merrill Lynch and Jefferies during the period, though the share price rose less than 2% in the two weeks. The Dow was up almost 4% in that time. Pfizer shares closed most recently at $30.08, in a 52-week trading range of $28.25 to $36.46.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) saw its short interest retreat about 2% to more than 199.93 million shares by the middle of March, after plunging nearly 13% in the previous period. Not since last summer have the number of shares short been less than 200 million. The most recent reading was still 30.6% of the float, though. The days to cover dropped to about three as the daily average volume surged to a 52-week high. Former CEO Aubrey McClendon was indicted and then died during the period. Short sellers watched the share price more than double but pull back to an almost 64% gain between the settlement dates. The stock closed Thursday at $4.25, up handily from the multiyear low of $1.50 earlier this year. The 52-week high of $16.98 was seen last May
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