January 28, 1999
Short Interest Declines
On Nasdaq Stock Market
By DANIELLE SESSA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK -- Short interest fell 4.23% in the latest month on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The total, which includes Nasdaq small-capitalization and large-capitalization stocks, slipped to 1,865,489,495 shares on Jan. 15 from 1,947,809,429 shares in mid-December, according to Nasdaq.
See a complete listing of short interest in Nasdaq stocks.
On the Nasdaq SmallCap Market, which is made up of the 1,074 smaller-cap stocks, short interest rose 28.8%. It fell 4.98% for the 3,873 larger-cap stocks on the Nasdaq National Market. Traders who sell securities "short" borrow shares and then sell them, betting they can profit by buying the stock back later at lower prices.
Short interest is the number of shares that haven't been repurchased for return to lenders. As such, it is often taken as an indicator of the degree of negative sentiment among investors in the stocks. Investors may rely on short selling for other purposes, including as a hedging strategy related to corporate mergers and acquisitions, for convertible securities and options, and for tax purposes.
The Nasdaq National Market's short-interest ratio fell to 2.06 days from 2.19 days in the previous month. The short-interest ratio for the smaller stocks rose to 0.94 from 0.76. The ratio is the number of trading days that would be required to close out the short positions through share purchases and is considered a measure of trading sentiment.
The following companies had the largest decrease in short interest: Cisco Systems Inc., down 8,357,868 shares to 17,506,053; Ascend Communications Inc., down 8,159,883 shares to 9,623,292; Amazon.com Inc., down 4,474,823 shares to 16,263,193; Microsoft Corp., down 4,334,455 shares to 14,106,694 and Peoples Heritage Financial Group Inc., down 3,907,858 shares to 458,377.
The following companies had the largest increase in short interest: ATI Technologies Inc., up 10,012,456 shares to 10,209,091; Dell Computer Corp., up 5,059,467 shares to 33,055,574; PeopleSoft Inc., up 4,687,761 shares to 17,029,589; Tele-Communications Inc. (Class A), up 4,146,576 shares to 25,801,829 and Nextel Communications Inc. (Class A), up 3,877,330 shares to 15,844,722.
Among companies with the largest short-interest positions: MCI WorldCom Inc. was down 297,962 shares to 35,077,691; Intel Corp. was down 76,036 shares to 19,743,438; Apple Computer Inc. was down 3,028,724 shares to 17,973,492; Oracle Corp. was down 271,583 shares to 12,612,697 and Chancellor Media Corp. was up 283,861 shares to 11,312,756.
The next Nasdaq short-interest report will be published Feb. 26.
|
