Short Interest

Now that the market is fully back to its usual melt-up gimmicks, when fundamentals do not matter in the least, and the only potential stock drivers are technicals, which for the market dominating algos typically reduce to such simplistic signals as stock price momentum (and reversion) and short interest as a % of share float, we present our summary of the worst of the worst. The following 40 companies are those names (among the Russell 2000) that have underperformed the market either by a little or a lot, now that the S&P is flat for the year, and which still carry a substantial short interest as a % of the total float (with a 20% of float short minimum). As the charts below demonstrate, one would be hard pressed to find worse companies out there (for pure equity stock pickers; credit analysts would be looking at a completely different set of fundamentals, but as we have repeatedly said fundamentals don't matter in this market, except the market maker number 1's Z.1, H.4.1 and H.3 statements). Which, thanks to bizarro logic, means that a portfolio constructed of these 40 companies will most certainly outperform the broader market by a large percentage. Brownie points if you pick out those companies in this list which have a Neutral or Sell rating by Goldman Sachs - you can bet your bottom FRN that Goldman's prop desk is currently accumulating that particular POS in anticipation of a honestly formulated upgrade by Goldman's sell side time, and the ensuing massive short squeeze rip.

If you are one of the unlucky few forced to buy and sell stocks for a living, based on some sort of "analysis", be it fundamental, technical, lunar, sun-spot, haruspicate, or on any other divination of the future, you have our condolences. That said, should you find yourself in this sad predicament, more than anything you probably want to know if what you are buying (having made the decision to buy it, or heaven forbid, short) is the right stock based on what other BSDs, aka hedge funds are buying, i.e., if the name you have shorted has 95% short interest and is about to go up by 10,000% overnight after yet another Goldman "conviction buy" upgrade-based short squeeze, if hedge fund groupthink momo cliques are about to bail en masse from the latest and greatest "sliced bread" stock, and many other such considerations. Well, you are in luck, Goldman's David Kostin has just released his quarterly hedge fund trend monitor, and it is chock-full of tens of charts of valuable information. Let's delve in.

"Our research team notes that a Republican Senate win would increase the odds that healthcare reform efforts are thwarted, with managed care stocks likely to rally the most, followed by large-cap pharma. Within managed care, HUM, HS and UAM would likely see the strongest potential upside. By contrast, hospital stocks might come under pressure, as these companies have been broadly viewed as “net winners” under reform." - Goldman Sachs

Earlier Goldman issued a new report on the homebuilders (found here). Not much in terms of overall macro perspective change, however notable was that Goldman downgraded TOL as the firm "believes that outperformance will be limited in the first half of 2010." However, before TOL management decides it will no longer pick up phone calls by Goldman's Joshua Pollard, GS hedges with: "That said, we still believe that there is significant value in Toll shares for patient investors as Toll has one of the best franchises in homebuilding." So sleep confident dear hedge funds managers - Goldman should still be able to arrange private one on ones with the CEO at your leisure. As for the true reason for the downgrade, whether this is due to most shorts having cleared out of the stock already, much in line with keeping with Goldman's strategy of upgrading stocks that have a substantial short interest (ref. MGM), is unclear.

The top five shorts of the decade, the new champion and my take on the possible implications, partly supported by Dr. Marc Faber.

The most recent short interest report from the NYSE indicated that bearish bets in the form of short exposure is near 2009 lows. The number of shares shorted on November 30, 2009 was 13.2 billion, a 0.2% increase from two weeks prior and a 12% decline from the prior year's 14.8 billion. Of the 4,124 stocks available for trading, 3,431 had short positions of at least 5,000. The most recent short interest came out at 3.45% of total shares outstanding, also flat from the prior two weeks.

The IPO window has closed. Just like in 2007, Blackstone once again times the exit opportunity perfectly (too bad you can't IPO twice), while firms like AEI and now Aviv REIT end up having to pull their initial public offerings. And this one happens to be the triple whammy of not just an IPO, and not just a REIT, but one lead managed by REIT reverse-interest expert (and short interest terminator) Bank of Countrywide Lynch. If Merrill was unable to find enough interest, then look out below.

In the first half of October, NYSE short interest as reported staged a moderate comeback, rising by 2.8% sequentially to 13.4 billion shares on October 15th, from 13.1 billion at the end of August, and a 1.1% decline from the 13.6 billion shares short on October 15, 2008. The short interest represented 3.51% of total shares outstanding.

On October 9, the NYSE provided its latest Short Interest update. The total number of shorted shares on the New York Stock Exchange at September 30 was 13.06 billion, a 3.5% decline from the 13.52 billion on September 15, a 42.5% decline from the all time high short position of 18.61 billion on July 15, 2008, and a 23.8% decline from the 2009 high of 16.17 billion in mid-March. The latest short interest represented a mere 3.42% of the total share outstanding as more and more bearish bets are closed, either voluntarily or forecefully. The current SI is equal to the short interest at the end of 2007.

Zero Hedge has compiled a list of the 8 worst/best [take your pick] stocks of 2009. The selection criteria include Russell 2000 stocks which have returned over 1,000% from their 52 week low, and which have a 10% or higher short interest. The last criteria is a function of our ongoing belief that this entire rally has been built on the backs of forced short covering action, in which those experiencing a squeeze are happy to lift any offers as long as they can get respective repo desks/margin call repo men off their backs. Another interesting observation is the 1 year growth in revenue and EBITDA. We use the term growth loosely as the median growth Year over Year for the universe of 8 has been -20% and -25% respectively: not exactly the stuff 1,000%+ rallies are made of. Lastly, of the eight companies, four have negative unlevered LTM free cash flows, which in this day and age of Fed sponsored moral hazard may in fact be a good thing.

Over the past year there have been some phenomenal moves in stocks, which some call high beta names, but which for all intents and purposes can be called "crap" companies (we use the term generically in the fashion it has been previously used by the mainstream media). So Zero Hedge decided to do a more in-depth analysis of just which names have benefited by the unprecedented equity rally, and whether their fundamentals justify the record moves from the stocks' 52 week lows.

"Specifically, on Tuesday, our long/short Valuation index returned -1.45%; our long/short Quality Index returned -1.47%; and our long/short Market Sentiment Index returned -1.75%. These returns are statistically significant and represent 3.3, 2.9 and 2.1 standard deviation moves, respectively, in the factors. We have not seen such poor performance in all of our factors on a single day since August 9th, 2007." - Barclays Capital

There are indications that the losses have gotten worse in recent days for some quants. Shares with the highest levels of short interest have been among the best performers in the past few weeks, according to Barclays Capital, while those with improving growth prospects are actually doing worse than the market. "Quality" stocks are on one of their worst streaks since 1950, Barclays said, causing problems for many quants.Rather than a sign that their whiz-bang computers should be chucked, quants' problems could be an early warning that the stock gusher is due
a break.

In my last article, I discussed two of the major factors to this week’s run-up in natural gas - Operation Flow Orders (OFOs) and pre-configured stop orders being hit. Here, I’d like to take a look at some other concurrent distortions in the natural gas market.

Data Explorers, via Alphaville, is demonstrating a rapid pick up in SPY shares on loan, a proxy for Short Interest. Of course, with periodic short recalls such as the one in IYR by UBS, it is only a matter of time before the banks create an artificial end to any such comparable bearish momentum trend in any of the highly trafficked ETFs. Stay tuned as we find out where the first SPY recall of the day will occur.