Short-sellers increasing positions in Hong Kong/China markets as profits hit $17.3 billion in 2018

Short-sellers are increasing their positions in the equity markets of Hong Kong and China as profits from their positions reached $17.3 billion at this point in 2018, a report by analytics company S3 Partners said.

With Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index down 18% this year and the CSI 300 Index of the top Chinese stocks in both Shanghai and Shenzhen falling 25.8%, “short-sellers continue to increase their positions as their profits build,” the report said.

S3 Analytics: HKChina Short Sellers up 18% in 2018 Mark to Market Profits $BABA $FXI $BIDU $JD $IQ https://t.co/lWDPHNXCAV pic.twitter.com/iEI3JrpWmj

— Ihor Dusaniwsky (@ihors3) November 16, 2018

“Hong Kong/China with $80 billion in short interest is the second most shorted country behind the US ($911 billion) and ahead of Japan ($73 billion) and the UK ($66 billion),” the S3 report explained.

The most shorted sectors in Hong Kong/China are the Consumer Discretionary, Financials and Communication Services. 

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Sectors with the largest profits also had the largest shorts in them with the Consumer Discretionary/Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA), Communication Services/Tencent Holdings (OTC:TCEHY) and Financials/Ping An Insurance Group (HKSE:2318) being the largest shorts in the most profitable sectors.

“These three largest shorts in the HK/China region have been consistently shorted,” S3 said in its report.

It added: “The more stable and ‘boring’ sectors such as Energy, Utilities and Health Care underperformed on the short side while the more volatile and “high-flying” sectors such as Information technology and Communication Services outperformed on the short side.”

Contact Rene Pastor by [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors