Short Monitor – Weekly declarations on the rise, still lower than pandemic highs

We have looked at shorting activity in the UK market throughout November in the latest update of our short monitor. The charts show the top 20 most shorted stocks in terms of percentage of issued share capital currently, and the month-on-month changes for these 20 stocks. Premier Oil has returned to its position as the most shorted stock in the UK, with a 1.9% increase in November to 10.99% of its issued share capital shorted. That said, this is far less than its peak of 21.55% in March.

Unilever saw the greatest month-on-month increase in the UK top total UK shorts chart, with a total 4.8% shorted in November; significantly, 4.25% was shorted by Millennium International Management on 27 November. Pearson was the only other UK company with a greater than 4% month-on-month increase at 4.5%, bringing the total to 8.72%.

The gross number of weekly declarations has started to rise again following a long period of decline, reaching 130 in the last week of November. This represents an 11% increase from the last week in October (117). However, it is still 420 shorts lower than at the height of the pandemic.