As the markets closed on Friday, two headlines caught my eye:
"Why the Worst Isn't Over Yet," CNNMoney
"Correction or Beginning of a Bear Market?" Wall Street Journal online
With so much uncertainty hanging around the market in general, I thought it would be instructive to look at the particular stocks that have the most doubters.
The list below looks at the 10 stocks with the highest short interest. I've limited this screen to stocks trading on major U.S. exchanges, and to rule out penny stocks I set a limit of $1 a share. Finally, I focused on short interest rather than the largest total short positions because the latter stat predictably skews toward mega-cap stocks and exchange-traded funds with massive trading volume.
Here are the results:
Stock |
Market Cap |
Short Interest as a % of Shares Outstanding |
Motley Fool
|
---|---|---|---|
Amedisys |
$1.3 billion |
43.3% |
** |
Fuel Systems Solutions |
$484 million |
41.3% |
*** |
Synaptics |
$949 million |
37.5% |
**** |
Sequenom |
$370 million |
35.9% |
*** |
NutriSystem |
$672 million |
35.6% |
*** |
Energy Conversion Devices |
$209 million |
35.1% |
*** |
PetMed Express |
$412 million |
33.6% |
**** |
Blackboard |
$1.4 billion |
33.2% |
*** |
Athenahealth |
$762 million |
31.0% |
** |
AMAG Pharmaceutical |
$698 million |
30.2% |
** |
Data from Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) as of June 11. CAPS data from Motley Fool CAPS; out of a possible five stars.
So what?
For balance, I included each stock's Motley Fool CAPS rating, a gauge of the Main Street sentiment. Wall Street sentiment is against these 10 stocks, but the CAPS community isn't entirely bearish.
Many are betting on these stocks' demise. That's not to say the short-sellers are always right -- just that if you own them, you should carefully weigh all that pessimism against your investing thesis.
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