The results of a recent lift of a ban on short selling financial stocks in Spain are in. Since February 16 investors had new opportunities to take short positions in financials. According to data published yesterday by the CNMV, the five largest Spanish banks have not been attacked by the bears.
Among the biggest banks in the sector, only Popular had more than 0.2% of its capitalization tied up in short positions immediately before the CNMV decided to lift the ban.
Although we can now speculate on Popular's decline, bears have reduced their holdings to 4.64% from 4.77% in a span of two weeks.
Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank and Bankia continue to avoid short sellers. It is surprising that Santander in particular has avoided a beating, because short sellers were invested in 0.20% of its capital when the ban was placed and up until the middle of November.
