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Big drop in TSL short interest from $19.15mm to $16.15mm shares. JASO SI also dropped from $3.17mm to $2.66mm shares.

Meanwhile, I see a jump in SOL short interest from $5.04mm to $6.53mm. JKS, YGE, also had increases in short interest.

Do you think shorts are paying more attention to balance sheets?

Yes, but still SI is less than 5% of the float...

SI for SOL is growing fast - exactly as followed from trading pattern -as I stressed many times SOL is under special treatment. Some entity either does not like their business or management or . . . accumulate shares. But these digits were 2 weeks ago. Now I guess digits are the same - SOL still underperfoms her peers.

Short Interest Climbs at Chinese Solar Firms
Posted: April 25, 2013 at 9:55 am
http://247wallst.com/2013/04/25/short-in…se-solar-firms/

My guess is that the high short interest is due to WS betting on China being nailed by the EU tariff decision, due in June. However, it appears that decision my favor the Chinese (which would explain the few days of rising share prices lately).

TSL 4/30 short interest at 15.788MM, down from 16.154MM - sizable drop from 19.276MM on 3/15 but still significant
SOL 4/30 short interest at 6.859MM, up from 6.537MM - big jump over past few weeks from 3.069MM on 3/15
JKS 4/30 short interest at 1.109MM down from 1.173MM
YGE 4/30 short interest at 7.510MM, down from 7.530MM
CSIQ 4/30 short interest at 2.083MM, up from 1.925MM
JASO 4/30 short interest at 2.209MM, down from 2.66MM - big drop over past few weeks from 3.383 on 3/15
FSLR 4/30 short interest t 17.073MM down from 18.43MM
SPWR 4/30 short interest at 9.524MM, up from 9.153MM

I think we could see a decent amount of short covering in SOL over next week prior to earnings release. Similarly, i think we could see the same with TSL as earnings approach.

Wow! My SI "meter" works perfect. Today we've got SI on April 30th. I wrote (see this thread) on April 25th that SOL SI is still growing and must be slightly higher than previous report indicated.
From April 25th: "SI for SOL is growing fast - exactly as followed from trading pattern -as I stressed many times SOL is under special treatment. Some entity either does not like their business or management or . . . accumulate shares. But these digits were 2 weeks ago. Now I guess digits are the same - SOL still underperforms her peers". "The same"
was on April 25th. Then within next 5 days shorts were trying to stop SOL from rising (take a look at SOL chart) and SI increased.
It looks like now I can predict what the next SI report (May 25th) will tell us for leading Chi5 - this report will reflect today's situation. It is not difficult when you see what is going on.

I don't think you understand SI as much as you say you do. TSLA had 50% short interest. Did that predict the short slaughter today? You bet it did. All any stock needs is an impetus for longs to pile in. And then you end up with a short blood bath we saw today.

I understand SI exactly as it is. TSLA is a rare example of wrong decision made by shorts. I know this stock, followed from IPO, was in and out 4-5 times and you will be surprised I still have 500 shares of TSLA (BTW: I mentioned TSLA on this forum several times). TSLA trading reminds me AMZN, NFLX, LNKD and a number of others. They all have a specific feature: the WS made a big bet on them trying to bake a distant future performance in today's SP. AMZN e.g. is trading at price of 5 year ahead earnings (read reports). In a case of AMZN and NFLX shorts were more careful while TSLA's one made a big mistake believing that TSLA's profitability is way beyond horizon. A structure of TSLA shorts less representative than AMZN and NFLX. As you know the WS affiliated players also made mistake but until somebody extremely powerful come to the party they can dictate a price (take a look at a battle around HLF).
In general, statistically verified the bigger a short interest the less chance that SP succeeds with no respect to the company fundamentals. If you remember JKS short interest exceeded 7M when the stock hit the bottom. Until major shorts finished covering the stock was killed. If you notice TSL always was a leader in terms of both share price and performance. But as soon as TSL SI was taken too high shorts put a plug on SP. We are talking how smart SOL management, how winning her business model, and SOL is trading well below all Chi9 with a market cap below LDK and recently STP. The only reason is shorts who probably made a wrong bet but they are powerful enough to prevent stock from rising. I hope I explain my view. In brief I am trying to avoid stocks with too high SI because a chance of short squeeze is low enough. When I piled on SOL a SI was 2.5 times lower. Well, let's wait for May 16.

The stock is up 40% (1.25 to 1.75) higher even though SI has gone up during that time. As I said, I don't think you understand SI as much as you say you do.

Exactly shorts added to position from 1.25 the last 2 weeks and now we are at 1.74. I'm telling you shorts about to get their faces ripped off...

if shorts were not piled on SOL a current SOL price would have been around 3.20-3.30. Take a look at CSIQ. SI did not change, even becomes a little bit less and the stock rallied higher than previous top. JKS doubled (from 3.9 to 8.20) -SI did not change. YGE made a much smaller second rally - SI increased. A direct interconnection between SP and SI dynamics is almost always the same: the higher SI the worse SP performance. It is easy to understand: the more shares sold (it does not matter how - it can be sell-off or a short sale) the more difficult for SP to grow. In rare situations shorts are losing. Last example I participated in was BBRY. The stock was taken from 150 to 6. There were reasons for this debacle but driving a stock of famous company below cash value with zero debt and plenty of assets (book value is over $19) was too extended. 2/3rd of SI was taken below $8. I bought BBRY with both hands in 6.5-7 range and sold it in 16-17 area only 2 months later. Now shorts encountered a real problem: to hold this stock in 14-16 range they MUST continue increasing SI that reaches now 40%. 2/3rd of institutional shorts are sitting on 70-100% loss and any short squeeze can bring this stock to $30-35 that can cause a devastation effect for a hedge fund. BBRY is one of the biggest Canadian company, situated close to me, I know people out there in person and I know what I'm taking about. Shorts are actually trapped, pressure is growing and the second short squeeze is probably coming. In a case of our little babies -SOL, TSL shorts can manipulate easy but a final of this dangerous game can be unpleasant for them.

If there is any profit on May 16th SOL will jump (duh) yet if the shorts try to keep it down using the EU tarrif excuse they might get BBQ'd. Maybe they realize both positives and are starting to cover? This SI increase may actually help us?

Fingers crossed.

Quoted from "solar123"

If there is any profit on May 16th SOL will jump (duh) yet if the shorts try to keep it down using the EU tarrif excuse they might get BBQ'd. Maybe they realize both positives and are starting to cover? This SI increase may actually help us?

Fingers crossed.

As always I don't think it will be as much as past current as it is about the future...

If they can predict a profit by Q3 stock should fly.... Q2 would be huge

Keys as always forecasting higher ASP and increasing margins. At this level, so depressed it along with many other solars could explode for and instant 100% gain in a flash. So much bad news baked in, the gas is poured all over the shorts... SOL just has to light 1 match and poof....

JA's short interest has came down but I think what's holding the stock back are the 6.56M shares that were lent to Lehman from the convertibles that Barclays acquired. May 15, 2013 is the day the convertible is scheduled to be paid off, the remaining balance of around $118 M. Now I would think those shares hath to be returned to JA. That was the agreement with Lehman.
The note originally was for $400 M so JA has been paying it down since the note was acquired in 2008. They have said they are prepared to pay the remaining balance.

shorts are doing all the best to cover big SOL position but they are helpless and they have to increase it again to hold the price down. Right now i.e. today they shorted over 100K within less than 10 minutes. Being in their shoes I would have covered at any price, took loss and went long but these guys did not get used to take a loss.

New SI is available. JASO went up by 12.2% and Trina went down by 15.5%.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/solar-e…ades-2013-06-12