Short Selling: 15 stocks with subtle short interest shift during ASX reporting season

Welcome back to the Short Seller Series – A recap of the most heavily shorted stocks on the ASX as well as those experiencing significant changes over the past week/month.

Short selling data is four days behind today's date because reporting is not mandatory until three business days after the trade. The tables below compare week-on-week (WoW % Chg) short interest changes between 31 Jan and 20 Feb 2024. The rising and falling short interest ranks stocks based on largest WoW change.

Most Shorted

Key themes and takeaways:

• Pilbara Minerals, Syrah Resources and Core Lithium remain the top three most shorted stocks on the market since late November 2023.

• All-in-all, there has been very little change among top shorted stocks on both week-on-week and month-on-month timeframes.

• Pilbara Minerals released its half-year results on 22 Feb (two days after the above short selling data). The result contained a few bumps including an 8% EBITDA miss due to higher corporate general and administrative costs. PLS did note a pickup in inquiries for its spodumene product in the last 8 weeks. Interestingly, PLS shares opened -3.0% lower on results day and rallied back up to breakeven. The stock is up around 9% since 20 Feb.

Rising Shorts

Key themes and takeaways:

• SSR Mining was forced to suspend operations at its Copler mine after a "significant slip" from a heap leach pad. “Once we complete our initial emergency response protocols onsite we will be able to provide more details," said SSR Executive Chairman Rod Antal. The project produced 220,999 ounces of gold in the 2023 calendar year or approximately 31% of group gold production. The stock nosedived 52% on the news. On the same day, short interest spiked from 0.32% to 3.08%.

• Reporting season losers including Magellan and Sims have experienced an uptick in short interest.

• Reporting season winners (which have run extremely hard in recent days) are also experiencing an uptick in short interest. This includes names like IDP Education and Nick Scali.

Most Covered

• Temple & Webster shares are up 25% since its half-year results announcement on 12 February. It's fair to say that shorters have been obliterated.

• Shorters are also covering other reporting season winners including Downer, GUD and Reliance Worldwide.

• Sayona shares rallied as much as 80% between 13-20 February, which may have forced some short covering.