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Short Sellers Squeezed By Rally

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by Megan Barnett
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Mar 24 2009 5:54pm EDT

Short-Sellers Squeezed by Rally

For all you short-selling opponents out there, here's reason for schadenfreude.

According to the New York Stock Exchange, short positions--which bet on stocks to fall--reached 16.1 billion the week that ended March 13. This marked their highest level since the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy last September.

Evidently plenty of investors were betting on the dead cat bounce theory. Stocks hit a bottom on March 9 and their rally since then has had everyone wondering if it was real or not.

Since then, of course, stocks have only climbed higher. In the two weeks that ended yesterday, the S&P 500 index was up 22 percent. Since March 13, the day the short positions reached 16.1 billion, the index is up 6.6 percent, even after today's decline.

Maybe short-sellers aren't so influential after all.


by Megan Barnett

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