Five of the hottest growth stocks of the bull market, Facebook Inc FB 0.47%, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN 0.33%, Apple Inc. AAPL 0.69%, Netflix, Inc. NFLX 0.97% and Alphabet Inc GOOG 0.31% GOOGL 0.34%, have shown no signs of slowing down so far in 2017. However, short sellers seem to see the writing on the wall and have been quietly piling into the so-called FAANG stocks in droves in recent weeks.
According to the latest numbers from financial analytics firm S3 Partners, short sellers increased their net positions in the five FAANG stocks by $1.93 billion, a 7.6-percent increase, over the six weeks ending on Sept. 28.
The latest positions bring the total outstanding short interest on the five stocks to $27.3 billion.
Of the five names, Netflix has been the hottest stock among short sellers, with a $910 million uptick in short interest in six weeks. Apple maintains the overall edge in total short interest with an outstanding short position of more than $6.3 billion.
Short-seller losses of more than half a billion dollars on their positions in Netflix and both classes of Alphabet shares since Aug. 15. However, their losses have been mitigated by a $510 million gain on Facebook, Amazon and Apple short stakes.
With these five stocks still among the most popular long plays in the market, analyst Brett Weiss says short sellers can continue placing their bets on the cheap.
“All of these companies continue…
Click here to continue reading
Want to learn more about how to profit off the stock market? Or maybe you just want to be able to look sophisticated in front of your coworkers when they ask you what you are reading on your Kindle, and you’d prefer to tell them “Oh, I’m just reading a book about stock market analysis,” rather than the usual “Oh, I’m just looking at pics of my ex-girlfriend on Facebook.” For these reasons and more, check out my book, Beating Wall Street with Common Sense. I don’t have a degree in finance; I have a degree in neuroscience. You don’t have to predict what stocks will do if you can predict what traders will do and be one step ahead of them. I made a 400% return in the stock market over five years using only basic principles of psychology and common sense. Beating Wall Street with Common Sense is now available on Amazon, and tradingcommonsense.com is always available on your local internet!
