SolarCity (SCTY) Short Interest Up 12 percent in October

Recent short interest data for the 10/31/2014 settlement date shows an increase in short interest for shares of SolarCity Corporation (SCTY). As of October 31, the short interest for the solar energy systems provider totaled 17,125,848 shares, as compared to 15,279,131 shares since October 15, a jump of 12.09%. Average daily volume [AVM] for the same period fell by 1,640,140 to 4,002,896 shares from 5,643,036 shares. It is worth mentioning that ticker’s short interest has jumped by more than 6.1M shares, or about 56%, from the 7/15/2014 settlement date.

Based on the latest AVM, the days-to-cover ratio — a metric that includes both the total shares short and the average daily volume of shares traded — is currently 4.28 days. Days-to-cover for SCTY increased to 4.28 for the October 31 settlement date, as compared to 2.71 days at the October 15 report.

Recently, a number of equity research firms have assigned a rating to the stock. Analysts at JP Morgan (JPM) maintained their ‘Overweight’ rating and $72 price target in a research note on November 6th. Baird analysts downgraded their ‘Outperform’ rating to ‘Neutral’ and set an $83 price target in a research note to clients on August 19th. Finally, analysts at Morgan Stanley (MS) initiated coverage on SCTY with an ‘Equal-weight’ rating and $92 price target in a research note on August 14th. Overall, there are 6 analysts that rate SolarCity a ‘Buy’, while 3 rate it a ‘Hold’. No analyst rates it a ‘Sell’. SCTY has a median Wall Street price target of $89 with a high target of $98.

SolarCity Corporation has a beta of 5.66 and a short float of 28.91%. In the past 52 weeks, shares of San Mateo, California-based company have traded between a low of $42.38 and a high of $88.35 and are now at $50.84. Shares are down 5.71% year-over-year, and 10.52% year-to-date. The name has a current market cap of $4.88B.

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