More new shorts were added in Nasdaq stocks in the end of March, but short interest declined on NYSE-listed names.
After hitting a two year high earlier in the year, short interest in NYSE stocks declined in the second half of March for the first time in 10 weeks.
Stocks listed on NASDAQ,however, saw an increase of 1.91 percent during the same period. As of March end, short interest rose to about 7.67 billion shares, compared with 7.53 billion shares as of mid-March.
The NYSE reported on Monday that short interest declined to 14.5 billion shares for the final weeks of March from 14.6 billion on March 14, a 1.05 percent decrease – the biggest such decrease since December of last year.
Biotech was one of the biggest shorts. Stocks with some of the highest ratios on Nasdaq were Myriad Genetics, WorldAcceptance and Sodastream, with more than 30 percent of outstanding shares sold as short.