Apple (AAPL): The Number of Shares Sold Short Explodes According to the Latest Report

The number of AAPL shares sold short as of 2/28/19 increased by 56.9M or 143% from the previous report date on 2/15/19. Short interest stood at 96.8M shares representing 2.1% of the float versus 39.9M shares or 0.9% of the float 2 weeks prior. This is an unprecedented move for as long as I can remember. For the 21 two-week periods prior to the most recent report, the average absolute change was 3.2M shares sold short with a standard deviation of 2.4M shares. The average. absolute percentage change is 7% with no two-week period every exceeding 20%. Thus, for the last year there the period to period changes have been quite small. 

So what happened in the last two weeks of February that led to the short interest more than doubling? Even when Apple announced it weak guidance and that it would no longer report unit sales causing the stock to tank, short interest only increased 15% or 5.2M shares. The stock has been on the rise and sentiment has seemed to improve. Thus, a change of this magnitude in AAPL short interest doesn't make any sense.

What could make sense is that a hedge fund, or a few people with a lot of capital placed a massive short bet. It's highly unlikely that large number of typical investors just all of sudden simultaneously decided to go short on AAPL. That would imply that overall sentiment had soured which doesn't seem to be the case. There have not been any negative news or significant developments, and the stock has been rising. It is hard to fathom that this increase was caused by a large number of investors. Most likely a person(s) is making a huge bet that AAPL is going lower. Perhaps as high (or even higher) as 50M shares, or $8.7B in value. If they haven't already covered they are enjoying a $600M paper loss. If they have covered, they don't have anything to show for their efforts since AAPL has not been lower in the days since the last report. It will be interesting to see where AAPL short interest stands when the 3/15 report is released.