Biggest Squeeze In 2 Months Sends ‘Most Shorted’ Stocks To Critical Resistance

One outlier in Wall Street’s monster rally since mid-March is that the “Most Shorted” Stocks Index is still well off its peak while the broad-market (led by mega-techs) has shot to the moon, powering overall main equity indexes to record highs, or at least to near all-time-highs. 

A handful of mega  stocks in S&P500 now account for 22% of market cap have been responsible for the latest melt-up in main equity indexes. 

This week’s massive squeeze in “most shorted” stocks appears to confirm conventional wisdom that the latest recovery-ignorant (as the shape of the economic recovery is quickly transforming from a “V” to a “U” or even “L”) parabolic move higher in stocks is yet another engineered short-cover rally…

An index constituent analysis of the Most Shorted Index reveals, on a market cap by sector basis, most of the bearish bets are in consumer cyclicals (47.48%), healthcare (13.89%), technology (12.72%), and financials (7.80%). 

Here’s the latest leavers and joiners of the index since the start of July.  

A complete list of all constituents in the Most Shorted Index (as of Saturday, Aug. 8). 

And this week’s surge leaves The Most Shorted Index back at the upper-end of its multi-year down-channel, where historically it has been violently rejected. 

With short-covering responsible for major bounces in the main equity indexes earlier this year, did this week’s surge cause the ‘squeeze’ ammo to run out?