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Tracking short interest

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With the record date officially set at 2/7/18, are you guys still getting offers at good rates to lend your shares from your brokerages? Seems like the selloff might be the work of the shorts so wanted some confirmation of shares for lending no longer a scarcity.

At Fidelity, all of my shares are still lent out. Currently, I am set to be paid at an 0.875% annual rate today. That rate can be and is sometimes adjusted throughout the day.
 
Just wanted to update this thread after the recent jump in short interest. After skimming through this thread, I believe we're currently at a record high for TSLA short interest.

Some of the higher values that I was able to find:

-32,316,654 as of 3/15/2013 settlement (share price $39.12) equals $1,264,227,504.48 short.
-31,515,192 as of 2/12/2016 settlement (share price $208.72) equals $6,577,850,874.24 short.
~35,000,000 as of 2/2/2017 (share price around $250) equals $8,750,000,000.00 short.
38,258,654 as of 4/13/2018 settlement (share price $304.70) equals $11,657,411,873.80 short.

Fidelity paying 1.75% today.
Schwab borrowed shares on 4/10/18 but returned them on 4/13/18.

Screen Shot 2018-04-25 at 3.14.47 PM.png
 
It just hit me that over $10B short, for a company whose market cap is $47B, is ridiculous! I already knew it was ridiculous, but sometimes numbers like this hit you between the eyes.

For people thinking about what percentage of the float is short, I want to remind you of something. Someone (probably in another thread, since I'm having trouble finding it) pointed out that the short borrowing shares and selling them effectively increases the available float. But it's not even as simple as that! The buyer of those shares can't tell the difference from real shares. (Actually, they are real shares; it's the lender who knows that he isn't currently holding them. But never mind that.) In particular, the new owner can lend them out to shorts! This is one of the beautiful things (to me anyway :) ) about a true short squeeze. Some of the shares will have effectively been loaned out multiple times.

Alice lends to Steve, who sells them to Bob.
Bob lends them to Stephanie, who sells them to Charlie.
Charlie lends them to Sam, who sells them to David.

Now the price starts to rise, and Alice decides it might be nice to take some profit, so she sells her shares and her broker recalls them from Steve, who has to buy shares to cover, forcing the price up some more. Alice is not desperate to cash in, but Steve has no choice in the matter, so even though the sale and purchase sort of balance out, it really does force the price up. At the same time, the available float has just gone down a bit because of those virtual shares going away. So Bob thinks "Hmmm, this is going up nicely, maybe I'll take some money off the table," and around we go.
 
It just hit me that over $10B short, for a company whose market cap is $47B, is ridiculous! I already knew it was ridiculous, but sometimes numbers like this hit you between the eyes.

For people thinking about what percentage of the float is short, I want to remind you of something. Someone (probably in another thread, since I'm having trouble finding it) pointed out that the short borrowing shares and selling them effectively increases the available float. But it's not even as simple as that! The buyer of those shares can't tell the difference from real shares. (Actually, they are real shares; it's the lender who knows that he isn't currently holding them. But never mind that.) In particular, the new owner can lend them out to shorts! This is one of the beautiful things (to me anyway :) ) about a true short squeeze. Some of the shares will have effectively been loaned out multiple times.

Alice lends to Steve, who sells them to Bob.
Bob lends them to Stephanie, who sells them to Charlie.
Charlie lends them to Sam, who sells them to David.

Now the price starts to rise, and Alice decides it might be nice to take some profit, so she sells her shares and her broker recalls them from Steve, who has to buy shares to cover, forcing the price up some more. Alice is not desperate to cash in, but Steve has no choice in the matter, so even though the sale and purchase sort of balance out, it really does force the price up. At the same time, the available float has just gone down a bit because of those virtual shares going away. So Bob thinks "Hmmm, this is going up nicely, maybe I'll take some money off the table," and around we go.

Maybe this Daily TSLA Trading Charts from @Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading thread.
 
Well, it's sort of interesting/relevant now, so I'm again tracking Fidelity's interest rates, both what the longs get for loaning and what the shorts pay to borrow. What's most interesting is that for several days now (since Friday May 4), the rates were the same, meaning that if both rates are correct, Fidelity isn't taking a bite of ANY of the interest - it all goes to the share loaner. Also interesting that the rates aren't higher, considering the 38M share short interest.

I'm going to try to embed this so it's automatically updated, but it took me a few tries to figure this out last time so bear with me.

OK, here's the static image:
pubchart

Here's a link that should be updated as I add data in case embedding doesn't work.
 
Well, it's sort of interesting/relevant now, so I'm again tracking Fidelity's interest rates, both what the longs get for loaning and what the shorts pay to borrow. What's most interesting is that for several days now (since Friday May 4), the rates were the same, meaning that if both rates are correct, Fidelity isn't taking a bite of ANY of the interest - it all goes to the share loaner. Also interesting that the rates aren't higher, considering the 38M share short interest.

I'm going to try to embed this so it's automatically updated, but it took me a few tries to figure this out last time so bear with me.

OK, here's the static image:
pubchart

Here's a link that should be updated as I add data in case embedding doesn't work.

Oddly on IB, today the rates began to fall slightly. They opened at 3.72% falling to 3.68% shortly after the open, by the close the rate was 3.57%. I was expecting a steady rise in rates given the incredible short interest presently. Color me confused.
 
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Oddly on IB, today the rates began to fall slightly. They opened at 3.72% falling to 3.68% shortly after the open, by the close the rate was 3.57%. I was expecting a steady rise in rates given the incredible short interest presently. Color me confused.
I think a very very large investor has offered up their shares for lending and the brokerages are preferentially taking their shares rather than the "little guys" shares.
 
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I think a very very large investor has offered up their shares for lending and the brokerages are preferentially taking their shares rather than the "little guys" shares.
You make a very interesting point. Is there any way to find out who that individual is? Is there any kind of disclosure that may need to be made by a large investor if they are willing to lend shares to be shorted? Talk about being “black balled” from Tesla.
 
Oddly on IB, today the rates began to fall slightly. They opened at 3.72% falling to 3.68% shortly after the open, by the close the rate was 3.57%. I was expecting a steady rise in rates given the incredible short interest presently. Color me confused.
>3%? The highest Etrade has been at was .4%, that seems like a big difference, demand and supply I guess. I keep thinking about switching from Etrade but I think their program is new so they are still getting it together but almost 4% v. .4%
 
>3%? The highest Etrade has been at was .4%, that seems like a big difference, demand and supply I guess. I keep thinking about switching from Etrade but I think their program is new so they are still getting it together but almost 4% v. .4%

Are you sure about that? I spoke w/ eTrade yesterday and I was quoted 2% which surprised me for being lower than IB.
 
Yep, between .38 and .4. Maybe I need to try and negotiate with them or just switch brokers.

eTrade has some great rates if you can get them. I pay .22 an option contract with no ticket fee. Also, Schwab and TD are having a war right now. They aren't advertising it but TD is offering a $3500 sign up bonus plus unlimited free options trades for 2 years if you bring $1mm+ over.
 
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