Friday, April 23, 2010

"How to short a volcano" (What did Eyjafjallajökull screw up?)

From FT Alphaville:

Data Explorers, specialists in the tracking of short interest, on Thursday published a report on how investors sought to profit from the fallout of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

Here are their ‘observations in market sentiment over six days of closed airspace’, emphasis FT Alphaville’s:

Short selling in Airlines picked up especially in Lufthansa, BA, and Easyjet,

Logistics companies were predicted to suffer the most. SAS and Kuehne & Nagel saw increases in short selling with institutions selling 6% of their holdings in SAS in the last 5 days

Pharmaceuticals including Astrazeneca saw increased shorting and selling by institutions

Our basket of volcano affected companies saw an overall increase of 12% in their short interest

Hire car companies including Hertz and Sixt. Investors closed shorts and institutions bought more shares

Shorts ran from Sky fearing increased ad’ revenues from people glued to the coverage...MORE

From the Volcanism blog:

(In addition to grounding European aviation for days on end and exhausting headline-writers’ supplies of volcano puns.)

The UK General Electionbetting on 2010 temperaturesSouthern California music festivalUK schoolgirls’ geography field tripthe Norwegian Government (iPad to the rescue)touring wrestlersBoston Marathon runnersthe London Book Fairhealth of petsfootball, ice hockey and runningPremier League refereesthe gilded progresses of celebs and pop starsJohn Cleese’s trip homefootball, cycling and runningPolish state funeraltransport of wounded soldiersDubai luxury hotel openingMorocco golf tournamentsexams, exotic foods and surgeryyet more celebs (Hollywood ‘paralized’, no less)Japan MotoGPthe international oil marketand even more celebsEuropean stocks and sharesKenyan flower growersKenyan vegetable growersmovie premieresBMW production in South Carolinaand still more celebs (superstar forced to take Irish Sea ferry)youth boxingequestrianismfootball (also boxing, running, tennis, motorcyle racing)organ transplantsGhana farming, war crimes trials, rose growing, car making, flowers for New York weddingstravel plans of dogs, horses, snakes, geckos, turtlesclassical concerts in San Diegoclassical concerts in Salt Lake Cityclassical concerts in New YorkTribeca Film FestivalMetallica tour (kings of heavy metal fight back, take bus)supplies of sea urchins, monkfish livers and scallops to British restaurantsart shipmentsweddingsweddingscomputer gaming eventsairline emissions regulationIndian TV host’s IPL contract (seems rather unfair)Italian guitar playerssupply chain resilience, whatever that iscollege admissionsscareware cyberscams