Since February this year, short investors have more than doubled their positions in Sun, with 5% (up from 2%) of the company shares now on loan. This is despite a small amount of short covering over the past week, according to Data Explorers, the short selling data research firm.
IBM is in talks with Sun Microsystems (at least for $6.5 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sun’s shares have halved since September 2008, from $8 to $4.
IBM meanwhile has seen a significant amount of short covering, down from 1.3% of the company on loan to 0.89% over the past fortnight which, along with the slight rise in the company’s share price over the past two weeks, from approximately $82 to $91, may indicate that the company is expecting good news.
L.D.