ShortReport

Much has been made regarding the supposed influence of 'short sellers' in global equity markets. The entire frisson surrounding short selling is politically-inspired garbage - but that does not mean short interest data is pointless. There are some important things that can still be drawn from analysis of short interest data.

The metrics we find of greatest interest, are the levels and changes in the short interest outstanding as a proportion of total shares issued - what we and others refer to as the Short Interest Ratio.

A second metric which is of interest to the broader market, is the actual dollar value (at current prices) of shares held short; this is a simple expression of the total shares held short, times the latest closing price. If this quantity rises without an increase in the underlying quantity of shares held short, then it indicates that short-sellers will be 'going backwards' - their short positions will be losing money.

The final - and perhaps the most interesting - metric we calculate each day, is the ratio of a stock's short interest to its most recent day's turnover; put in perspective, it is an estimate of the number of days's worth of trade that are held short.

Further analysis of short interest - specifically as it relates to aggregate short interest within indices - can be found in the Index ShortReport.

MarketMentat ShortReport for March 12

Highest Short Ratio ASX Code Short Ratio HGG 0.77 AGO 0.52 NUF 0.31 PRY 0.28 PDN 0.28 QBE 0.27 LGL 0.27 BLD 0.26 AGK 0.25 RIO 0.25

Highest Value Held Short ASX Code Short Value BHP 161518073.52 RIO 114195178.39 CBA 105180721.36 WBC 73902760.60 QBE 57380705.77 WES 55050429.24 ANZ 40674549.06 TLS 38208621.81 NAB 36198766.95 WOW 35905967.83

Highest Short/Turnover ASX Code Short/TO MDL 3.10 NUF 1.04 BLD 0.93 ALZ 0.91 AGK 0.88 TAH 0.84 MRE 0.83 HVN 0.83 TAL 0.83 IOO 0.81