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by keltex 5889 days ago
One metric of how negative sentiment is the short ratio of the stock (percent of shares sold short). For comparison:

AAPL - 1.3% (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics)

MSFT - 0.7% (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=msft+Key+Statistics)

GOOG - 1.4% (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=goog+Key+Statistics)

2 comments

Every time someone sells short someone is buying. So how is short ratio useful to measure "negative sentiment"?

Short selling might be used for technical reasons. For instance, an option trader might sell put options and at the same time sell the stock short for hedging. If the stock price goes down he loses money on the options but gains when he covers the short sell. That is, he might be betting on variables other than the stock price.

I humbly disagree. Markets are not 100% efficient in aggregating information. The list of examples is endless. Remember 3com and Palm?