This Magnificent Seven stock was the most shorted in December

Key points

• Apple was the most shorted stock by hedge fund managers in December.

• Several other big tech stocks were on the list, including IBM and AMD.

• H&M was the most shorted stock in the EMEA.

And one of the most shorted stocks of 2024 fell off the list in December.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) was the most shorted stock by hedge fund managers in December, according to a new report from data and analytics firm Hazeltree.

The monthly Hazeltree Shortside Crowdedness Report examines the stocks in the U.S., EMEA, and APAC that were most often shorted by alternative asset and hedge fund managers. Its scope includes large-, mid-, and small-cap stocks.

When an investor shorts a stock, they look to profit off of it because they believe will decline in price. It is a common strategy deployed by hedge fund managers.

In December, Apple shared that distinction among large-cap U.S.  stocks along with Live Nation (NYSE:LYV), the ticket sales operator. Both Apple and Live Nation had Hazeltree Crowdedness scores of 99 on a scale of 1-99.

“This score represents securities that are being shorted by the highest percentage of funds in Hazeltree’s community in a pre-defined category,” the report said. “The securities are graded on a scale of 1-99, with 99 representing the security that the highest percentage of funds are shorting.”

IBM, AMD, and Supermicro make the list

There were several other technology stocks on the list of the most shorted stocks, including IBM (NYSE: IBM). IBM, along with Chevron (NYSE:CVX), had a score of 96.

They were followed by chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD), tech firm Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ: SMCI), and cable company Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) with scores of 90. Semiconductor firm Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) and Boeing (NYSE: BA) were next with scores of 87, followed by Albemarle Corp. (NYSE: ALB) with a score of 84.

In addition, Supermicro had Hazeltree’s highest institutional supply utilization rating of 41.8%. This metric represents the percentage of the institutional investors’ supply of a particular security that is being lent out. It indicates how “hot” a security is in terms of the supply-demand dynamic.

There was one notable absence from the list, one of the most shorted stocks of 2024, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).

“During the month of December half of the most shorted Americas large cap securities were tech names including tech titans like Apple, IBM and AMD,” said Tim Smith, managing director of data insights at Hazeltree, said. “Noticeably absent from the list of top 10 securities was Tesla which topped the list for most of 2024. We also saw the return of H&M as the most crowded EMEA large cap security and Renova with the highest institutional supply utilization in the APAC small cap category.”

Most shorted small and mid-caps

The report also probed the top 10 most shorted mid-cap and small-cap stocks. In the U.S., among mid-caps, Bloom Energy (NYSE: BE) topped the list with a score of 99. It was its second straight month at No. 1. Charles River Labs (NYSE: CRL) was a distant second at 89. And Comstock Resources (NYSE: CRK) had the highest institutional supply utilization figure at 50.26%.

Among small-caps, Wolfspeed (NYSE: WOLF) had the highest score for the fifth consecutive month, scoring a 99. The semiconductor firm also had the highest institutional supply utilization rate at 57.23%.

In the EMEA, H&M was the most shorted large-cap stock. It also had the highest institutional supply utilization rate at 75.67%.

In the mid-cap category, Alstom was the most crowded security with a score of 99, while Neste Oyj had the highest institutional supply utilization rate at 25.98%.

Finally, among small-caps, SSP Group plc, Hays PLC, Basic-Fit N.V. and Alphawave IP Group plc were the most crowded securities with scores of 99. Air France-KLM S.A. led in institutional supply utilization with a rate of 91.45%.

The data comes from Hazeltree’s proprietary securities finance platform data, which tracks approximately 15,000 global equities across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. The data is aggregated and anonymized from the contributing Hazeltree community of approximately 700 asset manager funds.