5 Most Shorted Stocks in the World

1. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 258

Shares Shorted as of August 30: 40.54 million

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is another notable stock that is heavily shorted. Wells Fargo analyst Michael Turrin on September 22 wrote in a note to investors that he attended Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s inaugural Power Platform Conference in Orlando, and although there weren’t any major new product announcements to call out, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) did introduce multiple new features across the platform. The company pointed out two core trends contributing to its focus on the space – the popularity of collaborative apps and the rise of the citizen developers, which Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is leaning into more aggressively. With Power Platform now exceeding $2 billion in scale and growing more than 70%, the analyst thinks it continues to be of strategic interest for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the short-term. The analyst has an Overweight rating and a price target of $350 on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares.

Among the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was part of 258 public stock portfolios at the end of June 2022, compared to 259 funds in the last quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke, and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital is one of the leading stakeholders of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), with a position worth $4.6 billion. 

In its Q2 2022 investor letter, Baron Funds, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“Shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), a leading global provider of software solutions, declined 16.6% in the quarter along with the broader software group as well as due to growing concerns of a potential macro-driven slowdown. This is despite the company posting strong quarterly financial results and successfully absorbing headwinds from the war in Ukraine. The company had 21% revenue growth, 23% operating income growth, and 35% growth in Microsoft Cloud (all year-over-year in constant currency), which now represents 47% of total revenues. (read more…)”

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