‘Short’ Sales Jump Among NYSE Issues

Here’s another reason why the stock market has had such a rough last month: “Short” sellers--traders who borrow stock and sell it, betting they can replace it later at lower prices--sharply boosted their bearish bets in the 30 days ended Dec. 15.

The number of shares of New York Stock Exchange-listed companies sold short as of Dec. 15 reached a record 4.875 billion, the NYSE said Thursday. That marked a 6.2% jump from the level as of mid-November.

By contrast, shorted shares outstanding had risen 2.1% between mid-October and mid-November, and 4.2% the period before that.

Among the stocks where short sellers increased their bets between Nov. 15 and Dec. 15 were America Online, AT&T; and troubled Xerox--whose outstanding short-share position jumped from 17.9 million shares to 25.5 million.

But short sellers cut back on bearish bets on other large tech stocks, including Hewlett-Packard and Motorola--suggesting the traders didn’t expect the stocks to fall much further.

The Nasdaq Stock Market is expected to report short-sale data for its stocks next week.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Scared Shorts?

“Short” sellers--traders who borrow stock and sell it, betting the price will fall--boosted their bearish bets on New York Stock Exchange stocks overall in the 30 days ended Dec. 15. But these stocks were among the big-name issues whose short-sale positions fell in the period, as the bears retreated from them.

*--*

Shorted shares Shorted shares Ticker (in millions): (in millions) Pctg. Stock symbol Nov. 15 Dec. 15 drop Citigroup C 68.9 43.4 --37% Motorola MOT 41.3 33.4 --19 Hewlett-Packard HWP 34.8 28.5 --18 Coca-Cola KO 22.4 19.7 --12 TelMex TMX 28.5 26.5 --7 Compaq CPQ 24.5 23.0 --6 Lucent Tech. LU 33.6 32.2 --4 Kmart KM 24.6 23.8 --3 Wal-Mart WMT 36.8 35.9 --2 Sprint PCS PCS 69.1 68.2 --1

*--*

*

Sources: New York Stock Exchange, Bloomberg News