New: A comparison of the public short interest data

This week (Tuesday) saw the release of new short selling figures from the US exchanges as of the 30th June. In the first of a new series of monthly updates on this topic we will look at those names where our daily data acted as an early warning system. This should give us insight into where we are currently picking up big movements that will be mirrored the next time official data is released in two weeks. We will also address the overall correlation between the two similar yet different sources of information. Finally, we can reveal what the Italian regulator found when they looked at hastily gathered short selling disclosures earlier this week.

In a universe of 2,306 US equities, the onshore brokers report an increase in short interest in 1274 of them between the 15th and 30th June versus a decrease for 1032. So, 55% of names were subject to rising negative sentiment. Though, in aggregate, the data submitted to Data Explorers mirrored the same direction of movement over this period in 70% of cases, it slants in favor of slightly more short covering.

Forearmed is forewarned….

We were able to see, in advance, interesting movements in short selling that were then picked up by the data released on Tuesday. Here are some examples:

Rentec (AMEX:RTK)

Arrow Electronics (NYSE:ARW)

Zoll Medical (NASDAQ:ZOLL)

Sears (NASDAQ:SHLD)

Gap (NYSE:GPS)

Penske Automotive (NYSE:PAG)

First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR)

CIRCOR (NYSE:CIR)

Looking ahead

This time we are looking to flag names where we have seen a decent change that we anticipate will be revealed by the official channels but not for another two weeks.
Company % Change in Short Interest Since June 30th Current % of Shares Shorted
Newpark Resources Inc. (NYSE:NR) 14% 7.98
IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX) 12% 2.03
Satcon Technology Corporation (NASDAQ:SATC) 7% 23.72
Universal Forest Products Inc. (NASDAQ:UFPI) 5% 6.60
DryShips, Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS) 5% 4.17

And finally, there was an out of the blue chance to compare our Italian data this week after their regulator brought in emergency, but private, short selling disclosure. As this statement reveals, they found pretty similar insight to what our clients would find if they looked at our Italian stock borrow information. Yet again, the real scale of short selling was rather less exciting than what was rumored.

(AGI) Rome - Data provided to Consob on net and short positions superior to 0.2% of every company listed confirm that short sellings had a marginal effect on the market trend. The Stock Market authority received a total of 60 reports on italian large and medium capital companies, mainly from the manufacture sector. What is particularly striking is that there are only two banks and they are not among the majors. The fear of a raid on the banks by great speculators is not confirmed by the numbers. The incidence of yesterday's net and short positions compared to the total of capitalization is modest, amounting only to 0.13%. However attention remains high. Consob agreed with Italian Stock Market on the advisability to prolong "trading holt", and expressed hope that institutional investors abstain from securities lending, which is the speculation propellent, and may call back those already lent. . .