How Are The Shorts Trading Apple Inc. (AAPL)?

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At present, there are tons of tools for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) traders to pay attention to, but it’s key to be aware of a company’s shorts. Two metrics typically used are: (a) the percentage of a company’s tradable shares that short sellers are presently short selling, plus (b) the difference in shorting activity.

Increased shorting usually means what it implies: Wall Street has grown less fond of that particular stock. Short selling that’s too high, however, may have a bullish effect on stock price, as short-ers can be forced to cover their shares.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)Within Insider Monkey, it is not a secret that we watch hedge fund interest, but it is also important to pair this data with overall short interest data. In some high-profile cases, mega- players might share that they’re bearish on a particular company, but it is not an SEC requirement. Nonetheless, many retail players may want to stay away from heavily short sold stocks with elevated hedge fund investment, while others may want short-squeeze opportunities. For investors looking for a proven piggybacking strategy, discover the details of our premium strategy.

With that in mind, let’s take a peek at the key data swirling around Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Looking at the most recent FINRA short interest data, which is released two times every month, we can discover that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has a short interest of 2.60% of float. This indicates slight negative change from the prior filing period. With a total float of 938.30M shares, this is a short ratio of 1.50.

It’s also important to take note of hedge fund sentiment from their 13F filings. When analyzing the funds we track, Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, holds the largest position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Citadel Investment Group has a $2.7662 billion call position in the stock, comprising 4.2% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, with a $1.0614 billion position; 16.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other peers with similar optimism include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management.

Also, insider buying is at its handiest when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last half-year time period, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 3 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review activity in other stocks similar to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). These stocks are Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL). This group of stocks are the members of the personal computers industry and their market caps resemble AAPL’s market cap.

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