Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Rejoice Longs: First Solar Still the Most Shorted Stock in the S&P 500 (FSLR)

It's been the 1st or 2nd most shorted in the index since it replaced Wyeth back in October 2009.
In a week like this the shareholders should be thankful there's some buying to cushion the fall.
(Ciena was booted from the index in Dec. '09)
Table from Bespoke:
For those interested, below is a list of the most heavily shorted stocks as a percentage of float in the Russell 1,000.  When markets go up, these stocks typically outperform.  When markets go down, they usually lead the declines.

As shown, Tesla Motors (TSLA) is by far the most heavily shorted stock in the Russell 1,000 with 64.4% of its float sold short.  Alliance Data (ADS) ranks a distant second at 36.6%, followed by Green Dot (GDOT), Ciena (CIEN), and J Crew (JCG).  Other notables on the list include NetFlix (NFLX), First Solar (FSLR), and Garmin (GRMN).