Short Interest In Banks Continues to Decline (BAC, USB, JPM, C)

June 10, 2009 11:39 AM EDT

Deutsche Bank issued an interesting note on short interest in banks stocks. The firm noted that bank stock short interest, ex-Citi (NYSE: C), was down 14% in the second half of May. Over this time period bank stocks rose 1% on average. Deutsche Bank said short interest in banks stocks is 35% below the all time high in August 2008.

The firm noted the largest declines in short interest during the last two weeks of May were at Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (-40%), BB&T (NYSE: BBT) (-31%), PNC (NYSE: PNC) (-20%) and US Bancorp (NYSE: USB) (-20%). The largest increases were at Comerica (NYSE: CMA) (+21%), Marshall & Ilsley (NYSE: MI) (+21%), Regions Financial (NYSE: RF) (+17%) and Synovus Financial (NYSE: SNV) (+16%).

Short interest/float was highest at M&T Bank (NYSE: MTB), TCF (NYSE: TCB), Zions Bancorp (Nasdaq: ZION) and Citi (NYSE: C), while JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) had the lowest short interest/float.

Deutsche Bank also noted that trading volume in bank stocks was down 22% on average for the last two weeks of May. They also think based on their 2011 earnings estimate, bank stocks on average trade at an expensive 12-13x.

Short Interest Chart (From Deutsche Bank Via FactSet)


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BAC 15.65

-0.25 -1.57%
Volume: 128,983,266
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BBT 26.19

+0.59 +2.30%
Volume: 7,207,654
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C 4.10

+0.00 +0.00%
Volume: 188,732,717
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CMA 28.66

+0.32 +1.13%
Volume: 1,013,011
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JPM 41.93

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Volume: 32,514,341
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MI 5.67

-0.05 -0.87%
Volume: 13,561,543
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MTB 65.44

-0.21 -0.32%
Volume: 577,230
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PNC 56.49

+0.25 +0.44%
Volume: 2,811,316
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RF 5.85

+0.07 +1.21%
Volume: 30,294,140
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SNV 1.88

+0.00 +0.00%
Volume: 8,099,892
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TCB 12.89

-0.02 -0.15%
Volume: 1,197,523
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USB 24.43

+0.09 +0.37%
Volume: 10,026,199
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WFC 27.45

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Volume: 35,364,059
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ZION 13.34

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Volume: 5,005,106
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