Stock of the Day - The Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE:SCHW)

Ahead of first quarter earnings on Friday, Barron’s ran a positive piece about the online broker, noting that UBS is “particularly enthusiastic”. Its analyst believes that Schwab's trading outpaced industry volumes and expects 20% growth on the prior quarter. The Barron’s piece notes that three of the 21 analysts who follow the company have raised estimates and that the spread between the analysts’ estimates had narrowed, denoting greater consensus. In the run up to the results, long only investors who lend have increased their holdings since mid-March by 12 million shares to almost 240 million shares. During this period, shorts have covered their positions by around a third to 43 million shares or 3.57% of the total shares outstanding on loan. The chart below depicts the change in long and short fund flow in the run up to the results.