Just something to be aware of.....
I check the cumulative short position and the daily gross short sales each day for VUL and have noticed the following:
- The cumulative short position has been less than 4% of SOI since December 13th 2024 - see Shortman data below.
The open short position has gradually increased (from 3.57% to 3.97% since the start of April) with an average increase of around 43k shares per day - a relatively small cumulative increase relative to the shares on issue (SOI). Total cumulative short positions total 8.6M shares as of May 27.
What I have noticed in the daily gross shorts over the last couple of days is a significant increase in the number of short positions opened - 338k on 29/5 and 639k on 30/5. The daily gross numbers are only half of the story, so it doesn't mean a great deal on its own. The cumulative numbers for 29th and 30th will be released this week (Shortman) and they will tell us a bit more. If the cumulative short position rises by around that 1M shares, then it will signal that the Shorters believe they can take advantage of the delayed financing announcement (and general sentiment in the Lithium sector) to bring down the share price further and make some money shorting the stock. If the cumulative short position doesn't increase all that much, it means that the Shorters have been closing out as many short positions as they have been opening - thus working hard to keep a lid on the share price to allow them to exit in an orderly and controlled fashion. That then signals that they believe the share price will be rising at some stage soon and they want out of their current short positions before the rise happens. The two different scenarios give us two very different signals!
The cumulative short data that comes through on Wednesday and Thursday will give us some more colour on this. I'll reply to this post with an update when that data is released.
Stay tuned.
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