Shorts down $86 billion, -5.3%, over the last thirty days

The recent thirty-day market rally (Russell 3000 +4% & Nasdaq +6%) has hit short sellers hard in the Information Technology, Utilities & Materials and Energy sectors with only the Consumer Discretionary and Real Estate sectors posting positive short-side returns.

Short sellers have had a hard time finding winners over the last thirty days with almost two-thirds (63%) of every dollar shorted producing red ink on their P\L reports.

U.S. equity short sellers are down $86 billion in thirty-day mark-to-market losses, a -5.3% decline.

Short-side year-to-date mark-to-market losses now total -$242 billion, down -17.2% for the year with over a third of those losses incurred over the last thirty days.

Mag 7 stocks top the leaderboards on both the profit and loss sides of the ledger with Meta Platforms (META) and Amazon.com (AMZN), the most profitable shorts in dollar terms over the last thirty days and Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA) the most unprofitable shorts in dollar terms. Following are the top twenty short-side winners and losers over the last thirty days.

Of course, the largest P\L’s usually occur in the largest shorts, and it is more illuminating to look at the stocks with the largest profits & losses in percentage terms.

On the profitable short side, we see that five out of the top ten most profitable shorts over the last thirty days were Pharma\Biotech stocks (VOR, MLTX, KALV GGAL & HRMY), four out of the top twenty were Restaurant stocks (KRUS, BROS, PLAY & WING), and another four were Consumer Discretionary stocks (LGIH, DKNG, TDUP & KMX).

Looking at short positions with over $100 million of short interest, the largest winners over the last thirty days in percentage terms were:

On the unprofitable short side, we see that there were six Crypto\A.I.\Quantum stocks (RGTI, QBTS, BITF, CIFR, APLD & CLSK), five Energy stocks (PLUG, FLNC, IREN, EOSE & OKLO) and three Rare Earth stocks (LAC, USAR & QS).

Looking at short positions with over $100 million in short interest, the largest losers over the last thirty days in percentage terms were:

We should see increased short selling in Biotech\Pharma stocks and Consumer Discretionary stocks and short covering in Crypto/A.I./Quantum, Energy and Rare Earth stocks as momentum buying and selling continue in these sectors.

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