Stocks

FAANG stocks were up an average of +27.3% in 2021 but Amazon.com Inc (AMZN) underperformed the group significantly with only a +2.4% return. Shorting FAANG stocks was an unprofitable strategy in 2021, contributing $14.6 billion of mark-to-market losses to short seller’s bottom lines. Surprisingly, only AMZN is seeing outsized recent short covering in the group, with almost $4 billion of buy-to-covers over the last thirty days, a -26.5% decrease in shares shorted. Much like Punxsutawney Phil not seeing his shadow and predicting an early spring, AMZN short covering may be a harbinger of a much greener price performance in 2022.

McDonald’s Corp’s (MCD) slogan in 2008 was “What we’re made of” and according to Piper Sandler part of that will be plant-based in 2022. Pipe Sandler announced that McDonald’s will be launching the Beyond Meat (BYND) McPlant Burger nationwide in the 1^st quarter 2022.

CNBC recently created a new index which tracks “stocks integral to lives and careers of millennials and those from Generation Z”. According to CNBC the index is up over 40% in 2021, but down over the last month. Going long meme and Reddit names has been the new trend in 2021, will buying and shorting the CNBC Next Gen Index be the new retail vs institutional battle ground?

Paraphrasing Simon & Garfunkel, “Hello Tesla, my dear friend”, Tesla Inc.’s (TSLA) short interest has once again become a hot topic of conversation as its stock price surged over 30% in October and the stock joined the $1 trillion market cap club. As a result, short sellers are once again deep in the red and the anticipation of a significant short squeeze grows.

Electric Vehicle Manufacturer short sellers are up over $1 billion in mark-to-market profits in mid-day trading may be a bit of a hyperbole as Tesla Inc (TSLA) shorts make up over $900 million of those profits but the reality is that shorting EV stocks in 2021 has been a profitable trade for all but one of the stocks in the sector, Nikola Corp (NKLA).

We follow over 5,200 equities, ADRs and GDRs with short interest in Europe in our Blacklight SaaS platform and Black App with $286 billion of total short interest. Average Short Interest % of Float is 4.15% and S3 SI % Float (which includes synthetic longs created by every short sale in the Float number) is 3.82%. The average stock borrow fee is 0.67%. As a comparison, U.S. equites have an average SI % Float of 5.30%, S3 SI % Float of 4.77% and average stock borrow fee of 0.53%.

Short interest in the U.S. market decreased by -$35.4 billion, or -3.2%, to $1.08 trillion over the last 30 days. The traditional Short Interest % of Float for the sector is 5.35%, while the S3 Short Interest % of Float (which includes the synthetic shares created by every short sale in the Float number) is 4.81%. The average U.S. traded stock borrow fee is 0.52% fee. The equities\ADRs with the largest short interest are:

Looking at Short Interest as a % of Float, we do see a significant decrease in shares shorted, but just counting the total amount of physical shares shorted does not give a complete picture of short selling and short exposure. We need to look at Short Interest, or dollars at risk, to truly see what the shorts are doing.

This week the Dow Jones Index Committee announced that Tesla Inc (TSLA) will be added to the S&P 500 prior to the open on December 21, 2010. Tesla’s stock price has rallied since the announcement, gaining +21% as of mid-morning trading. As a result of this surge in its stock price TSLA equity short sellers are down -$4 billion in mark-to-market net-of-financing losses in under four days. TSLA shorts are now down -$30.34 in year-to-date mark-to-market net-of-financing losses and down -$5.03 billion for the month of November.

Apple Inc (AAPL) short sellers have been active ahead of the today’s earnings announcement. AAPL short interest is $10.86 billion, 92.8 million shares shorted, 0.54% of its float and a 40 bps stock borrow cost (general collateral). AAPL is now the third largest short in the U.S. market behind Tesla Inc (TSLA) and Alibaba Group ADR (BABA).