Railroads: Short Sellers Versus Buffett & Gates (UNP, NSC, CP, BNI, CNI, CSX, KSU)

Since Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, plus many others now, have gone after more railroad holdings, we thought it would be interesting to see how short sellers are acting in the names.  Supposedly you can now make money betting against Warren Buffett these days, but that all depends on YOUR timing versus HIS.  If you think that Bill Gates’ Cascade investment vehicle doesn’t have some foresight into issues 3 to 6 months ahead of time, well I won’t say it.  So here is how the short selling looks in the railroads from April to May

STOCK (Ticker)                MAY07    APR07    Change
Union Pacific (UNP)        4.41M     3.91M      12.8%
Burlington North (BNI)    6.19M      5.8M         6.1%   
Canadian Nat’l (CNI)        1.79M    1.40M      28.2%
CSX Corp. (CSX)              29.27M   27.97M    4.6%
Canadian Pac. (CP)         1.30M    1.06M        22.2%

lower short interest….

Norfolk Southern (NSC)    5.47M    7.93M    -31%
Kansas City So. (KSU)      5.30M    6.43M    -17.6%

NSC was Buffett’s top holding in the sector, and CNI was Gates’ top holding in the rails.  Both BNI and UNP were Buffett’s other holdings in the sector.

Jon C. Ogg
May 22, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.