Short selling has become vastly unprofitable since the broad stock market rally began in late October, according to data compiled on short positions in global exchange traded funds (ETFs).
Data from S3 Partners published on Thursday shows that U.S. equity ETFs were the most exposed, and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was the most heavily shorted fund, and also the least profitable.
In total, 92% of all ETF shorts were unprofitable and 98% of every dollar shorted was an unprofitable trade in the past 30 days.
“Institutionally, ETFs are primarily used as portfolio hedging vehicles, so one can expect that in an upward trending market most of the larger ETF short positions would have negative returns,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3.
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