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Short interest in Mastercard is increasing. Over the last week utilisation has increased substantially, rising to 60%. Current news is suggesting Mastercard has spent $880,000 in the first six months of 2007 to lobby the federal government, according to a disclosure form. The share price has been on the decline since July 07 and is currently trading at around $148.00, up 5% close of play yesterday. Market Cap on loan is 9%, this accounts for a total of $1.7 billion on loan.
Short interest in Jos A Bank Clothiers Inc has risen sharply since 18th September. % Market cap on loan is at an all-time high at 69% and utilisation is 84% of available supply. 
Investors seem to be ignoring the positive news coming out of the company and are betting that the share price rally since September 8th will be short-lived. The current share price is $35.08.
Erinaceous Group announced today that it was withdrawing its results the day before they were due to announce them to the market. Utilisation has been relatively high for a long time at 25%, given that the lendable as a percentage of market cap is 12.8% (high for the UK Equity Others sector). 
Market cap on loan is 3.55% and the share price is 53.25p. Erinaceous Group first hit our alerts on August 22nd when utilisation spiked up and the share price was 122p.
Utilisation and percentage of market cap on loan in Alliance & Leicester have both risen sharply over the last nine days. On 13th September, utilisation in Alliance & Leicester was 6.16% of the available supply. At close of business on Thursday 20th September, utilisation had risen to 52.31% of available supply. This equates to 11.89% of the market cap, according to data from Data Explorers. The lending is not dividend-related as can be seen from the chart called 'Dividend Entitlement.' Volume on exchange hit record levels last week.
Bradford & Bingley has seen similar, if less dramatic stock lending activity. Utilisation has risen from 33.7% on 13th September, to a current level of 59.25%. Our analysis of the lending activity in Northern Rock shows that utilisation peaked on 18th September at 62.72%. 
While it is difficult to make comparisons between the lending activity in different companies with different shareholder registers and business models, the lendable assets as a percentage of the market cap in NRK, A&L and B&B are very similar at 24%, 22.6% and 20.5% respectively. This would suggest that in even the most bearish scenario, it is highly unusual for more than 63% of the supply to be utilised in a large, liquid, financial stock. Both B&B and A&L are reaching these levels, suggesting that future demand to borrow could be limited and at some point these shorts will have to cover.
Following a $12 drop in price on the 22 Aug, utilisation levels have started to rise. Since the 22nd Sep, utilisation has almost doubled from 40% to 75% with the majority of the increase coming in the last couple of days. The stock lending fee has increased and the stock is now 'special'. Market Cap on loan is currently 28%. There is a share buyback program at the company which has resulted in 5.2 million shares bought back. The share price is currently $32.46. Click here for more info.
Utilisation in the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000 remain close to their all-time highs (see charts below).
Following the initial 'Bernanke bounce' which took place last night, investors are trying to identify which stocks are likely to rise the most on the back of short-covering. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules about percentage of market cap on loan and days to cover (there aren't even any rules of thumb). One clue might be to look at how recently the short position was taken out, ie the tenure of the stock loan. Stock was borrowed in Jones Lang Lasalle from mid-July onwards but it was only on 10th September that short interest really spiked up (from 24% utilisation to 33% in a day.) JLL closed at $104.11, up 5.21% last night.
Clients of Data Explorers are able to identify the tenure of the stock loan, days to cover ratio, percentage or market cap on loan and utilisation ratios.
With many global investment banks poised to announce Q3 earnings this week, traders are trying to work out just where the subprime pain has landed and who is likely to be suffering during the credit crunch. We have produced a new report on stock lending in US diversified financials, with charts on: MS, LEH, GS, JPM, CITI, BS, and MER Download us_investment_banks.pdf
Utilisation in Morgan Stanley is 6%, Percentage of Market Cap on Loan (MCOL) is 1.68%
Uilisation in Lehman is 12.14%, MCOL is 3.68%
Utilisation in Goldman Sachs is 4.53%, MCOL is 1.5%
Utilisation in JPMorgan is 1.32%, MCOL is 0.72%
Utilisation in Citigroup is 2.59%, MCOL is 1.17%
Utilisation in Bear Stearns is 30.71%, MCOL is 10.94%
Utilisation in Merrill Lynch is 6.71%, MCOL is 2.54%
Mortgage banks continue to be the focus of investor's attention as people try to work out 'who will be next?' We have published a new report on lending in the EMEA Banks sector. The Heatmap shows that traders have been short covering in IKB and increasing their shorts in Paragon Group during the past week.
Utilisation in Northern Rock rose to 59.97% of the available supply at close of business on Wednesday 12th September. This equates to 18.97% of the market cap. In the fixed income market, the 3.875% of 2011 saw a sharp rise in borrowing on 13th July and again on 24th August.
NRK is facing a liquidity crisis, rather than a solvency crisis: the last time the Secondary banks faced a similar crisis was during the mid-1970s when the Bank of England was forced to act as lender of last resort. A 'lifeboat' operation prevented about 30 secondary banks from collapsing and at least another 30 received other forms of assistance according to Cardiff University. A wave of mergers followed.
Other listed companies which may face difficulties borrowing in the CP/ securitisation market includes: Bradford and Bingley, Cattles and Paragon (Charts listed below). Northern Rock was highlighted in a Data Explorers study dated 5th September.
We will be publishing an article on European Mortgage banks later today.
Utilisation in Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL) has risen from 5% of the available supply to 33% over the last two months.
Lehman Brothers recently cut their EPS forecasts for the company while maintaining a price target of $118. The current share price is $95.92. Lehman Brothers "expects any development in the sub-prime market to adversely affect the company's share price going forward". The percentage of market cap on loan is 13.71 compared with 2% in mid-July 2007.
