Hedge fund shorts on UK equities jump 25% in 2020 - reports

25% increase on last year

Several high-profile hedge fund managers including Odey, Citadel, Lansdowne Partners, Marshall Wace and Millennium have added net short positions in FTSE 100 stocks to their portfolios during the first five months of 2020, according to a report by the Financial Times (FT), with short positions in UK firms having reached 1,569 among hedge funds during the first five months of the year.

The data, which was given to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) by ETF firm GraniteShares, found this was a 25% increase compared to the same period - between 2 January and 25 May - last year. The minimum threshold for disclosing net short positions is 0.1%, although this was only reduced from 0.2% in April, meaning some smaller short positions may not have been included in the research. The highest-conviction short position reported to the FCA was 16.7% of share capital of Premier Oil - a bet taken out by Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager Asia Research & Capital Management. Pr...