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.

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