JPMorgan: The Stock Market Still Has $90 Billion in Short Sales Left to Cover
- Levels of bearish bets have not come down much since August
- The S&P 500 is up more than 7 percent since bottoming Aug. 25
Traders on the New York Stock Exchange
Photographer: Michael NagleThis article is for subscribers only.
Here’s an awkward fact for anyone attributing the three-week climb in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to bearish investors unwinding trades: over that stretch, short interest hasn’t budged.
That’s according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts, who compared the amount of stock that traders have borrowed -- the first step in a short sale -- with the total available at institutions to lend. The level is almost 7 percent, near a three-year high. Separate data compiled by Markit Ltd. tells the same story: short interest is about 3 percent of all shares outstanding, roughly the same as at the bottom of the August selloff.