TrimTabs Reports Net Short Selling of $8.1 Billion in the First Half of February

In the first half of February (Feb 2-13), traders opened $8.1 billion in new short positions on the Russell 3000 stocks, raising the aggregate short interest to 12.52 billion shares ($226 billion / 2.89% of market cap) on February 13 from 12.31 billion shares ($230 billion / 2.66% of market cap) on January 30.

There was net short selling in nine of the ten of the major sectors with Consumer Discretionary and Information Technology receiving the largest short interest inflows of $2.5 billion and $2.1 billion, respectively. The only sector with net short covering was Utilities, which had a short interest outflow of $118 million.