Investors hiked their short bets on a handful of electric vehicle and charging companies during the second half of September, according to FactSet data. CNBC Pro used FactSet data to screen for stocks with the most short interest as of Sept. 29. The search involved looking for companies traded on the NYSE and Nasdaq with short interest of more than 25% of their total float and at least $100 million in market cap. Here are some of the names that met the criteria: Short interest in Fisker Inc. rose more than 7% during the period, to roughly 89 million shares and almost 47% of the company’s shares are freely available to trade. A handful of other electric vehicle and charging stocks also saw a jump in short interest during the period. Short interest in Lucid Group , for example, increased 7.5% to 218 million shares, while short interest in EVgo rose 5% to 25 million. Short interest reached about 26% of the float in both companies. LCID YTD mountain Lucid Group shares year to date Lucid shares sold off about 7% on Oct.5 after the company launched a cheaper version of its Air electric sedan in an attempt to boost demand. Shares have slumped 26% this year. EVgo shares have lost more than 34%. Novavax had about 51% of its free float shares sold short as of the end of September, the largest percentage among stocks in our criteria. Other names that saw elevated levels of short interest included Beyond Meat , SunPower , Sunnova Energy and WeWork .
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