Short Sellers’ Favorite Stock Bets Backfire

• February 13 2018
• Lu Wang

Short sellers just got burned, badly.

Short sellers just got burned, badly.

Under Armour Inc., the second-most targeted by short sellers among S&P 500 stocks, surged 17 percent Tuesday for the best performance in the benchmark index.

Chegg Inc. and GNC Holdings Inc., whose bearish wagers each amounted to at least one-tenth of their total shares available for trading according to IHS Markit, advanced 17 percent and 18 percent, respectively. The pain continued in post-market trading as Fossil Group Inc., a producer of fashion accessories whose short interest just spiked to a record 38 percent, surged as much as 60 percent after reporting an expected increase in fourth-quarter sales.

Under Armour and Chegg rallied after reporting better-than-expected results while GNC rose on a new $300 million investment.

They’re not the only bets that backfired for bears. A Goldman Sachs basket of the 50 most-shorted stocks climbed 0.9 percent, more than three times the gain in the S&P 500.