The Most Shorted Stock On The NASDAQ Among Today’s Big Losers

Let’s move on to Williams Companies Inc (NYSE:WMB), which is continuing its inexorable slide of the past ten weeks today. Shares are down by another 5.15% on no noteworthy news, dragging them down to losses of nearly 26% in the third quarter. The results are doubtlessly a major disappointment for the hedge funds in our database, with which it ranked as their favorite large-cap public utilities stock and one of their favorite high dividend stocks. The only good news on the latter front is that the poor stock performance has hiked its dividend yield to 5.55%. 86 hedge funds in our database held $10.64 billion of the company’s stock on June 30, shortly after shares spiked to over $60 in late June after it rejected a $53.1 billion buyout bid from Energy Transfer Equity LP (NYSE:ETE). Keith Meister’s Corvex Capital held the largest stake in Williams Companies Inc (NYSE:WMB) at the end of the second quarter, a 41.68 million-share position worth over $2.39 billion.

Lastly we come to Frontier Communications Corp (NASDAQ:FTR), the stock alluded to in the opening that was the most-shorted on the NASDAQ between August 14 and August 31. 168.53 million of the company’s more than 1.17 billion shares were being shorted as of August 31, about 14.4% of its outstanding shares. The short positions are not yet paying off, as shares are up slightly in September, even after the 3.98% slide today, which coincides with the company going ex-dividend today. Frontier Communications Corp (NASDAQ:FTR) revealed this week that it would offer up to $6.6 billion in senior notes to help pay for its $10.5 billion acquisition of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ)’s wireline assets in Texas, California, and Florida. Moody’s was positive about the senior notes and Frontier Communications Corp (NASDAQ:FTR)’s enhanced scale, assigning a Ba3 rating to the unsecured notes, and saying in regards to its recent acquisition that it “will dramatically improve its scale and acquire valuable assets that are strongly positioned versus the incumbent cable competitors. “ Hedge funds we track were extremely bullish on Frontier in the second quarter, with ownership rising to 41 from 22, and aggregate holdings more than doubling in value to over $604 million, even though shares traded down heavily in the quarter. Adage Capital Management, Citadel Investment Group, and Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group were among the firms buying loads of Frontier shares during that time.

Disclosure: None