Bets adjusted but not resolved

Dusseldorf The US stock market is in a summer rally: the leading index S&P 500 is up 17 percent since June 16, the technology index Nasdaq is up 23 percent and the small-cap index Russell 3000 is up 22 percent. Nevertheless, professional investors rarely stop betting on falling prices, as an analysis by the financial service S3 Partners shows.

While professional investors have reduced their “short positions” in some areas, explains S3 analyst Ihor Dusaniwsky: “But the reality is that interest in short betting has increased in the market as a whole since the major indices hit their lows for the year on June 16 achieved.”

Since then, bets worth $45.5 billion have been canceled, but that’s less than five percent of the total entire positions. Their value on the US market is over a trillion dollars.

The biggest down bets are in the information technology sector, followed by consumer discretionary (durables like autos or luxury goods) and health care.