Author:
Ihor Dusaniwsky
Managing Director of Predictive Analytics, S3 Partners
Matthew Unterman
Director of Predictive Analytics, S3 Partners
Tesla Inc (TSLA) continues to hold the #2 spot in the U.S. most shorted league table, behind Apple Inc (APPL) since early March as the two most shorted stocks in the U.S. have been battling for the top spot since late 2022. TSLA short interest is $15.42 billion, 83.65 million shares shorted, 3.10% SI % Float, 3.00% S3 SI % Float (which includes the longs created by every short sale in the denominator).
Largest U.S. Shorts
Ticker
SI % Float
S3 SI % Float
Short Interest
APPLE INC
AAPL
0.71%
0.70%
$18,608,775,703
TESLA INC
TSLA
3.10%
3.00%
$15,417,099,109
MICROSOFT CORP
MSFT
0.57%
0.57%
$12,052,127,706
NVIDIA CORP
NVDA
1.52%
1.50%
$9,972,815,280
VISA INC
V
1.91%
1.88%
$7,250,020,813
META PLATFORMS INC
META
1.33%
1.31%
$6,431,806,447
AMAZON.COM INC
AMZN
0.68%
0.67%
$6,220,633,132
ALIBABA GROUP ADR
BABA
1.97%
1.93%
$4,963,041,949
TMOBILE US INC
TMUS
6.19%
5.83%
$4,844,998,494
HOME DEPOT INC
HD
1.39%
1.37%
$4,199,030,475
ALPHABET INC - A
GOOGL
0.67%
0.67%
$4,173,205,306
TC ENERGY CORP
TRP
9.95%
9.05%
$4,144,194,735
EXXON MOBIL CORP
XOM
0.86%
0.86%
$4,100,950,617
PALO ALTO NETWORKS INC
PANW
6.42%
6.03%
$3,819,234,044
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
TXN
2.25%
2.20%
$3,679,133,875
BROADCOM INC
AVGO
1.40%
1.38%
$3,613,792,266
CANADIAN NATURAL RESOURCES
CNQ
5.20%
4.94%
$3,418,930,318
ALPHABET INC - C
GOOG
0.58%
0.58%
$3,172,611,793
ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES
AMD
2.19%
2.14%
$3,132,934,240
IBM CORP
IBM
2.67%
2.60%
$3,095,547,551
While TSLA’s short interest has been extremely volatile since 2022, reaching a high of $29.00 billion in May 2022 (TSLA’s historical high is $51.00 billion in January 2021) and a recent low of $8.60 billion in December 2022, APPL’s short interest has remained relatively stable with a high of $19.99 billion in August 2022 and low of $14.55 in January 2022.
After seeing additional TSLA short selling in the earlier part of 2023 we have seen short covering recently with 3.4 million shares covering over the last thirty days, worth $622 million, a -3.9% decrease in total shares shorted as its stock price rose +2.3%. TSLA had the fourth largest decrease in share shorted over the last thirty days.
Largest Increase in 30 Day Short Covering
Ticker
Short Interest
30D Change Shares Shorted
ALIBABA GROUP ADR
BABA
$4,963,041,949
($1,306,238,085)
TECK RESOURCES LTD B
TECK
$754,686,116
($1,139,471,400)
CANADIAN NATURAL RESOURCES LTD
CNQ
$3,418,930,318
($672,881,462)
TESLA INC
TSLA
$15,417,099,109
($622,056,940)
JPMORGAN CHASE CO
JPM
$2,273,453,379
($529,818,136)
AGNICO EAGLE MINES
AEM
$646,766,203
($454,674,777)
RITCHIE BROS AUCTIONEERS
RBA
$375,906,917
($449,172,670)
NVIDIA CORP
NVDA
$9,972,815,280
($444,796,936)
SUNCOR ENERGY
SU
$661,207,417
($413,515,841)
DUPONT DE NEMOURS INC
DD
$619,200,019
($387,829,232)
TSLA short sellers have given back more than a third of last year’s $15.85 billion of mark-to-market profits. Today’s -1.4% mid-day stock price move gave shorts $218 million of daily mark-to-market profits, bringing April’s total to +$2.16 billion of mark-to-market profits. Even after a very profitable April, TSLA shorts are still down -$5.52 billion in 2023 year-to-date mark-to-market losses. Since TSLA began trading in 2010, short sellers are down -$55.4 billion in mark-to-market losses.
TSLA’s recent price cuts may have a significant impact on margins but continued profitability and potentially increased demand in the overall EV market, in which TSLA is the clear-cut market leader, may drive more demand toward Elon Musk’s automobiles and keep revenue guidance forecasts up. Recent TSLA short covering may be an indication that some short sellers think that TSLA’s profit margins will stay in the 20% range and trimmed their exposure to lock in some of April’s mark-to-market profits in the anticipation of a stock price rally.
Our Blacklight SaaS platform and Black App provides an up-to-date view of short selling and short covering on an equity, sector, index, or country-wide basis allowing investors\traders to better manage their existing long and short positions.
The Black MaP and Black App products provide a total view of long and short positioning in the market with a breakdown between Active\Passive long investors, 24 Fund type entities, over 50k securities globally across 108 countries and data from 58 regulatory exchanges.