TrimTabs Records Net Short Selling of $15.8 Billion in the First Half of March

In the first half of March (Mar 2-13), traders opened $15.78 billion in new short positions on the Russell 3,000 stocks, raising the aggregate short interest to 14.28 billion shares ($227 billion / 2.92% of market cap) on March 13 from 12.84 billion shares ($203 billion / 2.69% of market cap) on February 27. This was the largest increase in short interest since June 2008.

There was net short selling in all ten of the major sectors with Financials and Information Technology receiving the largest short interest inflows of $5.6 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively.