Unless you've been living on Mars, you will all know what is going on on this historic day on Wall Street. We are therefore here to bring you the short interest data for these troubled stocks.
Lehman (LEH), who have filed for bankruptcy, saw an enormous spike in short interest last week, presumably as short investors got wind of the possible catastrophe at the weekend. As you can see from this chart, the percentage of LEH's Market Cap on loan (%MCOL) increased from 10% to 18% between September 5th and 11th. Utilisation jumped from 35% to 63% in the same time frame.
There has been a general decrease in the short positions in Merrill Lynch (MER), from a %MCOL of 5% in early August to 2.6% today, although short interest has picked up from 2% on September 8th. Utilisation is at just 11% so there is plenty more left to borrow.
Bank of America (BAC), who are due to buy Merrill, have just 2.58% MCOL, AIG (AIG) have 4.13%, Goldman Sachs (GS) have 2.47%, and Morgan Stanley (MS) have 2.43%. The stock with the highest percentage on loan is Washington Mutual (WM), with 24.68%.
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