The raw truth is that this is actually a very small gain of only just over 37,000,000 shares. But it follows what was a large drop from mid-August to mid September as mid-August was in the midst of the market malaise with 12,466,511,521 shares listed as being short. Just at the end of last month I had noted that short selling Internet stocks showed mixed results. There had previously been a large drop in major banking stock short interest, but we also showed how housing and retail stocks had been under short selling pressure.
You can see the full list of the September 28 settlement date short stocks at the site, but here are the top 10 (with short interest):
- iShares Russel 2000 Index (NYSE: IWM) 258,152,676
- Ford Motor (NYSE: F) 177,621,324
- Qwest Communications (NYSE: Q) 84,338,020
- Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) 76,350,102
- Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) 76,100,928
- General Electric (NYSE: GE) 65,851,636
- Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) 64,874,719
- Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) 62,259,216
- Tenet Healthcare (NYSE: THC) 57,387,316
- General Motors (NYSE: GM) 56,515,532










