TrimTabs Records Heavy Short Covering in Consumer Discretionary And IT Sectors

TrimTabs notes that in the second half of April (Apr 16-30), short interest on the Russell 3,000 stocks dropped to 13.62 billion shares ($260 billion / 2.88% of market cap) from 13.95 billion shares ($259 billion / 2.94% of market cap) on March 31.

There was net short covering in eight of the ten major sectors with Consumer Discretionary and Information Technology receiving the largest short interest outflows of $3.1 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively. The only sectors with net short selling were Health Care and Utilities, in which traders opened new short positions worth $457 million and $183 million, respectively.