Short-Sellers betting on more Retail Gloom

Short selling positions on retail shares have almost doubled between November and January, as investors bet on further gloom for the sector, Capital Spreads has revealed. The spread betting firm said that almost a quarter of all short positions are now allocated to retail shares. The firm’s client base shows that clothing shares are much more out of favour than the food retailers, citing Next, Marks & Spencer and Debenhams as being among the most heavily shorted retail stocks.

Thoughts: Not surprising really although much bad news is already factored in the retail stock prices. Undoubtedly there is more pain to come over the winter months – the Christmas holiday period is now over and with it the famous boom in business.

Tags: capital spreads, retail shares, short selling, shorters, spread betting

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Industry Happenings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.