Alliance & Leicester

Alliance & Leicester (AL) today revealed a sharp fall in unsecured personal lending and a slowdown in its mortgage business in the first four months of the year, as the UK bank revealed the costs related to the credit market downturn soared. (FT.com)

It is clear to see from this chart the sharp rise in the percentage of AL's Market Cap that is out on loan to short investors, and moreover the dramatic increase around the time of the credit crunch late last summer. However it does look (please click to enlarge) as though investors came to the trade late because the share price really started to drop in September before short positions started to increase later on that month. Utilisation is at 64%, and has decreased from 73% in December. There are 19 Days to Cover. The average Utilisation for the rest of the FTSE 100 is 7.7%, and for the rest of the EMEA Banks it is 20.8%.