GraniteShares : Most shorted UK stocks: Analysis reveals top 10 most shorted UK stocks and most active fund managers for shorting
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Will Rhind, Founder and CEO at GraniteShares
New analysis from ETP provider GraniteShares, which offers a range of 3x short and 3x leveraged ETPs on popular UK and US stocks, reveals that as of 25th October 2021, Cineworld Group, the world’s second-largest cinema chain, was the most shorted UK listed company. Some 9.2% of its stock was held short by seven investment firms, with New Holland Capital LLC the largest short position with 2.42% of the company’s shares.
The next most shorted UK listed companies were Petropavlovsk PLC, Hammerson PLC, Network International Holdings PLC, and Wood Group (John) PLC where the respective short positions were 6.9%, 6.3%, 4.6% and 4.6% respectively. The table shows the largest ten short positions in companies that are listed and trading on the London Stock Exchange.
| Company | Percentage of stock held short | Number of funds shorting the stock |
| Cineworld Group | 9.2% | 7 |
| Petropavlovsk PLC | 6.9% | 4 |
| Hammerson PLC | 6.3% | 6 |
| Network International Holdings PLC | 4.6% | 4 |
| Wood Group (John) PLC | 4.6% | 4 |
| Tullow Oil PLC | 4.4% | 5 |
| Metro Bank PLC | 3.7% | 2 |
| Sainsbury (J) PLC | 3.5% | 3 |
| Domino’s Pizza Group PLC | 3.3% | 5 |
| Greencore Group PLC | 3.3% | 3 |
Source: London Stock Exchange, updated on 25th October 2021
Among the stocks tracked by GraniteShares ETPs, Vodafone Group is the 18th most shorted stock, with three fund managers holding short positions representing 2% of the outstanding stock.
In terms of which fund managers had the most short positions on UK listed companies, the analysis reveals GLG Partners LP had the highest number with 23. This was followed by Marshall Wace LLP, BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited, JP Morgan Asset Management (UK) Ltd and Ennismore Fund Management Limited with 21, 21, 9 and 9 short positions respectively.
| Fund Manager | Number of short positions |
| GLG Partners LP | 23 |
| Marshall Wace LLP | 21 |
| BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited | 21 |
| JP Morgan Asset Management (UK) Ltd | 9 |
| Ennismore Fund Management Limited | 9 |
| Jupiter Investment Management Limited | 8 |
| AQR Capital Management LLC | 8 |
| AKO Capital LLP | 7 |
| Citadel Europe LLP | 6 |
| Gladstone Capital Management LLP | 5 |
Source: London Stock Exchange, updated on 25th October 2021
Will Rhind, Founder and CEO of GraniteShares, said: “Shorting stocks is no longer the exclusive pursuit of institutional investors, as sophisticated individual investors are now increasingly doing this. The value of funds invested in our 3x short single stock ETPs listed on the London Stock Exchange was around $34m million on 17th October 2021 with particular interest in some U.S. tech names such as Tesla, Uber, and Apple.
“Worries about rising interest rates have had an impact on more growth oriented tech names presenting a potential opportunity for some sophisticated investors seeking to take advantage of price declines over recent weeks.”
The five most popular 3x short single stock GraniteShares ETPs currently are:
| Top five GraniteShares single stock 3x short ETPs | Value of funds invested in ETPs |
| 3STS (3X SHORT TESLA) | $9.2m |
| 3SNI (3X SHORT NIO) | $6.1m |
| 3SAP 3X SHORT APPLE | $2.5m |
| 3SUB 3X SHORT UBER | $2.2m |
| 3SZN 3X SHORT AMAZON | $1.8m |
GraniteShares currently offers 54 exchange traded products (ETPs) listed on the London Stock Ex-change. They consist of a suite of index ETPs tracking FAANG stocks and a suite of Short and Lever-aged Single Stock Daily ETPs tracking some of the most popular companies in UK and U.S. markets.
Its FAANG, GAFAM and FATANG product suite, offers long, short and 3X leveraged ETFs on FAANG, GAFAM and FATANG indices and can be traded in a single ticker symbol via ordinary bro-kerage accounts. FAANG consists of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google while GAFAM includes Google, Apple, Facebook Amazon, and Microsoft and FATANG covers Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Apple, Netflix, and Google
ETPs offer a pure way to gain exposure to top tech companies in the U.S. market. Indices are equally weighted and rebalanced quarterly.
Source: ETFWorld.co.uk
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