TrimTabs Reports Net Short Covering of $3.3 Billion in the Second Half of January

In the second half of January (Jan 16-30), traders covered $3.3 billion in short positions on the Russell 3000 stocks, reducing the aggregate short interest from 12.31 billion shares ($230 billion / 2.66% of market cap) on January 15 to 12.24 billion shares ($218 billion / 2.59% of market cap) on January 30.

There was net short covering in eight of the 10 of the major sectors with Consumer Staples and Information Technology receiving the largest short interest outflows of $1.3 billion and $1.0 billion, respectively. The only two sectors with net short selling were Utilities and Materials, which had short interest inflows of $404 million and $52 million, respectively.