New analysis from ETF provider GraniteShares, which offers a range of 3x short and 3x leveraged ETPs on popular UK and US stocks, reveals that as of 13 November 2020, Cineworld Group, the world’s second-largest cinema chain, was the most shorted UK listed company. Some 9.51 per cent of its stock was held short by 10 investment firms, with Adelphi Capital having the largest short position with 2.07 per cent of the company’s shares.
The next most shorted UK listed companies were Premier Oil PLC, Tullow Oil PLC, and Petrofac LTD, where the respective short positions were 9.14 per cent, 8.87 per cent and 8.42 per cent respectively.
Among the stocks tracked by GraniteShares ETPs, Vodafone Group is the 13th most shorted stock, with four fund managers holding short positions representing 4.43 per cent of the outstanding stock.
In terms of which fund managers had the most short positions on UK listed companies, the analysis reveals BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited had the highest number with 23. This was followed by GLG Partners LP, AQR Capital Management LLC, Marshall Wace LLP and Citadel Europe LLP with 22, 13, 12 and 11 short positions respectively.
Will Rhind, Founder and CEO of GraniteShares, says: “Fuelled by a number of factors including the Coronavirus crisis and the US election, we have seen some of the highest levels of market volatility for years. Many sophisticated investors and traders have used this to try and generate returns from large shifts in the price of individual stocks.
“There is no sign that the heightened levels of volatility that we have seen this year will dissipate any time soon. Investors’ response to news is rapid, think of the price moves we saw on the back of the Pfizer vaccine announcement on 9 November. There are any number of potential catalysts for the next move up or down, whether it is an EU-UK trade deal, yes or no, the smoothness of the US presidential transition, or potentially the impact of Tesla’s addition to the S&P 500 in December.
“We offer a range of leveraged and short ETPs on popular UK and US stocks, and the level of trading in these has increased dramatically. For example, the average daily volumes in these products were 123 per cent higher in October than it was in September.”
