More short stuff

Again, huge caveat that the data in these charts is only 0.5%+ short positions, but some interesting stuff I think. At the end of play yesterday the FCA had disclosed 581 current short positions of 0.5% and above in UK shares. So I looked at which firms had the most shorts, and - of that group - what their average, median and largest short positions were.

Blackrock has the most shorts in total, and also the second largest individual short of the sample. Odey has the largest single short and average short. AQR has the largest median short, second largest average short and third largest individual short.

A rough (and pretty obvious) reading of this is that the hedge funds that make shorting a significant part of their strategy take a small number of bigger positions. I am surprised by the sheer number of Blackrock shorts (and there must be a lot more under 0.5%) which makes me wonder if a lot of this is hedging. Also quite surprised to see both JP Morgan Asset Management and Merian Global Investors (formerly Old Mutual) in the mix.

For info I had an arbitrary way of picking firms - just those with 10 or more shorts in the list.

PS - 20 largest shorts and the funds that have them: