As Ackman’s Herbalife Saga Hits the Big Screen We Look at 4 Other Heavily-Shorted Stocks

#3 BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)

 – Volume of Shares Short (as of March 31): 75.57 million

 – Short Interest (in terms of float percentage as of March 31): 14.5%

During the latter half of March, the short interest in the $3.7 billion provider of mobile communications and services increased by 1.2%. It would take about 16 days to cover all of the short positions, if we take into account the stock’s average daily volume. So far this year, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)’s shares have plummeted by more than 22%. The early smartphone pioneer delivered fairly disappointing financial results for the fourth quarter recently, as revenue of $487 million not only came $76.18 million below analysts’ estimates, but also marked a 26.2% decline from the same period of last year. The company is planning to launch two mid-range Android phones this year after its first Android phone Priv turned out to be too expensive to gain respectable traction, despite being generally well received by critics. Jim Simons’ renowned managed futures fund Renaissance Technologies was bullish on BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) during the October-December period, as it raised its stake in the company by 7% to 13.19 million shares.

#2 Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI)

 – Volume of Shares Short (as of March 31): 163.16 million

 – Short Interest (in terms of float percentage as of March 31): 8.5%

The $19.6 billion satellite radio operator that boasts 29.6 million subscribers has seen its stock price slide by about 3.7% on a year-to-date basis. Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI)’s subscribers increased by 5% in 2015, and the company is now targeting the used-car market, where it has a much lower penetration rate, to grow further. Investors are perhaps cautious about the increase in the company’s subscriber acquisition costs, as reported in its latest 10k filing. Then there is also the feeling that auto sales might have peaked last year, given that the economic indicators are pointing to a weaker 2016 for the industry. Steve Owsley‘s Madison Street Partners sold its entire 685,400-share Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI) position during the fourth quarter.

#1 Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF)

 – Volume of Shares Short (as of March 31): 22.99 million

 – Short Interest (in terms of float percentage as of March 31): 26.7%

Shares of the $5 billion nutrition company have surged by about 8.4% so far this year, mostly on the back of fourth quarter financial results that beat analysts’ estimates. Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF)’s confession in early March that it had misstated the number of active new members of its service, a metric that it used to defend itself against Ackman’s accusations, has done little to dissuade investors. New York state senator Jeff Klein, who has previously echoed Ackman’s stance on Herbalife, recently claimed to have found more victims of the company in addition to the 56 people on his list from last October, who had lost about $20,000 each on average. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Paul Tudor Jones‘ namesake fund Tudor Investment Corp disposed of their entire Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF) holdings during the fourth quarter.

Disclosure: None