What Financial Stocks Are Shorted the Most?
From mid-July to late July short interest dropped 5.34 percent, on average, in the shares of 17 major financial firms affected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission emergency short-selling rule, according to the latest data from the exchange.
U.S. securities regulators issued an emergency rule last month to limit illegal "naked" short selling in shares of 19 major financial firms, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac .
While the rule is set to expire on Tuesday, data Monday from the New York Stock Exchange revealed the change in short interest in 17 of these stocks since the rule went in to effect.
The data, below, compares short interest figures from July 31 to July 15.
| Stock | July 31 | July 15 | % Change |
| Freddie Mac | 119,388,354 | 105,969,929 | 12.66 |
| Fannie Mae | 146,455,461 | 154,430,053 | -5.16 |
| Bank of America | 125,039,172 | 136,885,083 | -8.65 |
| Morgan Stanley | 43,130,415 | 47,139,717 | -8.51 |
| Citigroup | 151,513,897 | 158,620,361 | -4.48 |
| Goldman Sachs | 12,450,836 | 15,050,185 | -17.27 |
| JPMorgan | 48,849,725 | 56,841,902 | -14.06 |
| Lehman Brothers | 82,087,766 | 85,322,267 | -3.79 |
| Merrill Lynch | 54,890,344 | 63,532,112 | -13.60 |
| Barclays | 6,043,120 | 6,289,182 | -3.91 |
| Credit Suisse | 1,276,785 | 1,696,952 | -24.76 |
| Deutsche Bank | 2,498,983 | 3,052,990 | -18.15 |
| Allianz | 663,455 | 1,303,027 | -49.08 |
| Royal Bank ADS | 4,146,821 | 5,961,925 | -30.44 |
| HSBC Holdings | 8,417,827 | 8,436,680 | -0.22 |
| Mizuho Financial | 306,287 | 1,465,347 | -79.1 |
| UBS | 14,338,459 | 15,876,523 | -9.69 |
Source: NYSE Data
Shares of Daiwa Securities and BNP Paribas are not listed on the NYSE, so short interest figures were not available.
