Bridgewater, Millennium, and Marshall Wace in bearish bet on Europeans banks
Adds quotes in 7th paragraph, more short sellers named, updates share price moves
By Nell Mackenzie and Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro
LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) -Investment managers Bridgewater Associates, Millennium Management and Marshall Wace added to short positions on European banking shares after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank sparked contagion fears across global banks, according to data from Breakout Point.
Hedge funds including Citadel, Wellington Management, Capital Fund Management and Odey Asset Management already had short positions, some long-standing, disclosed as of Feb. 15, said the data provider on Thursday.
Short selling involves borrowing shares from a broker to sell them, with the expectation of buying them back at a lower price to make a profit.
Short sellers had amassed bearish positions worth more than $15.7 billion against European banks by Tuesday, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Millennium Management, Citadel, Wellington Management, Capital Fund Management, Odey Asset Management and Marshall Wace declined to comment. Bridgewater Associates said it would respond in due course.
Marshall Wace held the largest disclosed number of short positions against banks, public filings from Austria, Italy, Sweden, Britain, Spain and Poland analysed by Breakout Point showed. The banks included BAWAG BAWG.VI, FinecoBank FBK.MI, Handelsbanken SHBa.ST, CaixaBank CABK.MC, NatWest Group NWG.L and PKO Bank Polski PKO.WA.
"With six big shorts, Marshall Wace holds, by far, the most disclosed banking shorts across Europe. They boosted a number of these shorts in recent weeks, generating some nice profits at their side," said Ivan Ćosović, founder of data group Breakout Point.
Handelsbanken, Mediobanca MDBI.MI, BNP Paribas BNPP.PA, Credit Suisse CSGN.S, Close Brothers CBRO.L, Deutsche Bank DBKGn.DE were among financial firms that ended Tuesday with the highest proportion of shares on loan to short sellers, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The 113 lenders tracked by the researchers saw an average increase of 5% of shares out on loan between March 10 and 14.
The data did not cover the plunge in Credit Suisse shares on Wednesday.
Traders with short positions on Credit Suisse could potentially have made month-to-date profits of up to $238.6 million and year-to-date profits of up to $192.4 million, data provider S3 Partners said on Wednesday, when the Swiss group's shares plunged by as much as 30% after its top shareholder said it could not inject more capital into the bank.
Credit Suisse sought to shore up its liquidity and restore investor confidence on Thursday by borrowing up to $54 billion from Switzerland's central bank. Its shares were up 18% at 1602 GMT, in a broader European banking index .SX7P up 1.4%
In the week to Wednesday, some 120 billion euros had been wiped off the value of European bank shares.
The rout began after Silicon Valley Bank was forced to sell a portfolio of bonds at a loss to meet the demands of its customers who wished to withdraw funds, prompting fears of a liquidity crunch at other financial institutions.
($1 = 0.9501 euros)
Reporting by Nell Mackenzie; Editing by Amanda Cooper and Mark Potter
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務，允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容，但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限，並受以下條款與條例約束：（i）條款與條例；（ii）風險提示；（iii）完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊，僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意，我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成，也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料，僅適用於教育/資訊類用途，不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議，或是交易價格紀錄，或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容，包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接，皆爲‘按原狀’，並作爲一般市場評論所提供，而非投資建議。請理解和接受，所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容，並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性，而根據法律要求所編寫，而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊，相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。
