Topic: How To Invest

Pat: Please could you comment on whether one should consider existing short positions when making an investment decision. For example, there are significant short positions in CGI and Bank of Nova Scotia, both of which are top buy recommendations of yours. Thank you.

Article Excerpt

High short positions are no longer a particularly telling stock market indicator, since traders and hedge funds often combine a short sale with some other transaction in stock options. Rather than having to buy the stock back in the market, for instance, holders of a call option can exercise the option and buy the stock from the option seller. The short sale may say more about volume in the options market than it does about the company’s fundamentals. Bank of Nova Scotia and CGI Group are bound to have high short positions; both are highly liquid stocks, and there are plenty of shares available to borrow from the many institutions that own them. CGI Group and Bank of Nova Scotia are both buys. buys…