Short sellers have lost $ 5.5 billion so far in November. Here are the jobs that hurt the most

© Ethan Miller / Getty Images

TO SAY IT

The pain of short sellers, who use leverage to bet an asset’s value will drop, intensified earlier this week after an optimistic update on a vaccine candidate from Pfizer and its partner BioNTech Monday that made Wall Street fight back. stocks like travel and leisure and out of technology-related investments.

These moves led to a strong market surge, which particularly benefited small cap stocks and assets considered undervalued by certain parameters.

Indeed, the Russell 2000 index focused on small caps is up 5.2% so far this week, pushing it to trade to its first record in about two years, while the Nasdaq Composite Index, very technology, is down 1.1% so far on the week, despite rallying nearly 2% on Wednesday. This marks the largest margin of outperformance between the Nasdaq Composite and the Russell on record since 1986, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Meanwhile, value-driven investments outperform growth, those investments that tend to grow earnings and profits faster than others over time, at least briefly breaking a decadal pattern of outperforming growth assets that tend to reside in the technology and internet categories.

Video: Why Jim Cramer is buying stocks amid the Monday market crash (TheStreet)

Why Jim Cramer is buying stocks amid the Monday market crash

Click to enlarge

NEXT

Lily: Market rally due to ‘pause’ as rotation from growth to value hits an ‘extreme’

So far this week, the iShares S&P 500 Value ETF has risen 5.2%, while its growth counterpart, the iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF, has fallen 0.3% over the same period.

And momentum-driven trades, bets on stocks that are expected to rise because they have done so in the past, fell 2.4% this week, as the iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF measures.

“Sign of the potential of a post-COVID rotation, [Monday] was the largest one-day gap between the performance of the Momentum and Value factors in the 28-year history of our data, ”Evercore ISI analysts noted in a Tuesday report.

All this seismic movement has led short sellers to record paper losses of around $ 5.5 billion since Nov. 1, according to data provider Ortex Analytics.

Here is a list of the stocks of the companies that they believe have inflicted the most pain on short sellers:

Of course, some transactions have benefited short sellers:

It’s still unclear whether the rally in value will hold up, tech stocks made a comeback on Wednesday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Russell 2000 both traded lower on the session.