Tesla, Inc. TSLA has relinquished its title as the most-shorted stock, slipping to the third position, according to data from S3 Partners‘ Ihor Dusaniwsky shared on Wednesday.
Shift in Short Interest: As of Jan. 12, approximately $18.52 billion worth of Tesla shares were held as short bets, placing the electric vehicle maker in the third spot behind Apple, Inc. AAPL and Microsoft Corp. MSFT.
Insights from S3 Partners via Ihor Dusaniwsky highlighted that Tesla maintained the highest short interest among the “Mag 7” shares, with short interest representing 3.06% of the total float.
| Short Interest | |
| Tesla | 3.06% |
| Meta | 1.38% |
| Nvidia | 1.10% |
| Amazon | 0.84% |
| Alphabet | 0.69% |
| Apple | 0.65% |
| Microsoft | 0.65% |
Notably, General Motors Corp. GM had an even higher short interest of 8.17%, followed by T-Mobile US, Inc. TMUS at 5.65%.
Market Implications: Shorting involves selling a borrowed stock in anticipation of a price drop. Tesla shorts lost $12.5 billion in 2023 and were down 64.64% on an average short interest of $18.9 billion. Since 2010, Tesla shorts were down $61.9 billion, illustrating the perils of the strategy.
The recent volatility in Tesla’s stock is influenced by a host of factors, from its delivery performance to margin management. In contrast, Apple’s increased short bets underscore emerging concerns about its future product demand and the company’s struggle to identify a new breakthrough hardware product.
Tesla ended Wednesday’s session down 1.98% at $215.55, according to Benzinga Pro data.