Short & Caught: The ASX stocks investors are shorting right now

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Short & Caught is Stockhead’s fortnightly recap of which ASX small cap stocks are heavily shorted. Stocks that are shorted have investors betting that they fall.

Shorting works by selling stocks you do not actually own in the hope of buying them back at a lower price.

Because shorting is restricted under Australian law, any substantial shorting of stocks is worth knowing about even if you own these stocks and only trade long.

Stockhead’s two preferred metrics are raw short interest as well as percentage changes in them within the last month.

Retailer Myer (ASX:MYR) was again the most shorted.

Other stocks with short interest above 50 million shares included New Century Resources (ASX:NCZ), Ioneer (ASX:INR), Carnarvon Petroleum (ASX:CVN) and Senex Energy (ASX:SXY).

Infrastructure play Decmil (ASX:DCG) led the pack of stocks that witnessed the sharpest rise in the last month. The company made a $75m half-yearly loss after money stopped flowing from a couple of clients.

While it says the future is bright it had to undertake a $50m capital raising at a heavily discounted price.

Other companies that have become shorters’ targets since raising capital include water treatment stock Phoslock (ASX:PET) and internet of things play Buddy Technologies (ASX:BUD).

Buy now, pay later stocks have seen a boom in recent days with a number of companies announcing acquisitions or strong user growth.

FlexiGroup (ASX:FXL) and OpenPay (ASX:OPY) are two such stocks and they have been targeted by shorters.

As the debate rages on about whether uranium’s recent price spike is another false dawn or the long awaited renaissance, Boss Resources (ASX:BOE) joined Paladin Energy (ASX:PDN) in piquing the interest of the shorters.

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