Retail Stocks With The Highest Short Interest

Much of the U.S. retail sector is struggling to compete with Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and other e-commerce competition in the digital age. With the U.S. unemployment rate at its lowest level in a decade, the U.S. retail sector lost 61,000 jobs in the past two months alone.

Not surprisingly, the SPDR S&P Retail (ETF) XRT has slipped 5.1 percent in the past year.

However, some traders are attempting to take retail sector lemons and make lemonade by short selling struggling retail stocks. On one hand, retail stocks with the highest short interest are an indication of which companies the market sees as the weakest links. On the other hand, retail stocks with the highest short interest also have the lowest bar when it comes to expectations, and any positive developments could trigger short squeezes in the market.

5 Stocks In Focus

With retail earnings season just getting underway, here are the five retail stocks with the highest short percent of float, according to Bespoke:

1. RH RH: 54.5 short percent of float.
2. Rent-A-Center Inc RCII: 46.1 short percent of float.
3. Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation BGFV: 42.4 short percent of float.
4. Fred’s, Inc. FRED: 41.8 short percent of float.
5. Dillard’s, Inc. DDS: 36.7 short percent of float.

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