Short Selling: Core Lithium and Sayona shorts ease after ASX rebalance

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 to short interest over the past week.

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) changes between 12 March and 5 March

• Month-on-month (MoM % Chg) changes between 12 March and 12 February

Most Shorted

Key themes and takeaways:

• Pilbara Minerals and Syrah Resources remain the top two most shorted stocks on the market since late November 2023

• Core Lithium and Sayona were removed from the ASX 200 as part of the S&P's March quarter rebalance. This might be the reason behind the recent drop in short interest (e.g. funds that track the ASX 200 are no longer forced to hold these stocks and won't lend their stock out anymore, forcing shorts to be recalled/shorts forced to cover)

• Deep Yellow saw a sizeable drop in short interest last week. The company successfully received commitments to raise $220 million at $1.225 per share (3.9% discount to pre-raise close) on 11 March. With the completion of the capital raise, the short thesis surrounding Deep Yellow has been addressed, leading to a normalisation of short interest

Rising Shorts

Short interest is targeting a number of themes including reporting season losers (Inghams, Magellan), gold (St Barbara, Newmont and Regis Resources), structural headwinds (IDP Education – Tighter migration policies, competitive threats).

Most Covered

SSR Mining, Argosy Minerals and Neometals were removed from the ASX 300 as part of the S&P's March quarter rebalance