Investors hiked up their short bets on several energy and electric vehicle-related names during the last two weeks of January. The broader market has continued to race ahead this year, but stocks dropped Tuesday after hotter-than-expected inflation data for January lowered expectations for rate cuts. The S & P 500 has lost 1.7% this week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 1.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has fallen more than 2% during this period. Against this market backdrop, CNBC Pro screened FactSet data for stocks trading on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Exchange with the most short interest as of Jan. 31. These stocks have at least $100 million in market capitalization and short interest represents at least 25% of their total float, or the amount of outstanding shares available to be traded. See below for the names of the heavily shorted stocks. There is a significant amount of short interest in B. Riley Financial at 62.8% of the stock’s float, or 10.4 million shares as of Jan. 31. The company’s shares have fallen more than 55% over the past year. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported on B. Riley’s troubled bet on the buyout of Franchise Group. B. Riley’s shares were off nearly 9% on Tuesday. RILY 1D mountain B. Riley Financial stock performance Fears around an EV slowdown have also bled into the market, with short interest continuing in EV maker Fisker and EV charging equipment services provider Blink Charging . Fisker has seen short interest continue for several weeks now. During the latter half of January, short interest remained flat but still amounted to 53.5% of the company’s stock float. Shares of the EV company have fallen more than 55% so far this year. Short interest accounts for nearly a third of Blink Charging’s total stock float. Bets against solar energy company SunPower and hydrogen fuel cell system developer Plug Power also grew during this period, particularly as renewable energy companies continue to struggle with project financing amid higher interest rates. Short interest in SunPower jumped to about 34.7 million shares, or about 40% of its float, while Plug Power saw its short interest during the period amount to roughly 34% of its float. Shares of SunPower have fallen 25% this year, while Plug Power has lost more than 8%.
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