Research has shown that as of 15 April, Cineworld Group, the world's second-largest cinema chain, was the most shorted UK listed company. Some 7.1 percent of its stock was held short by six investment firms, with New Holland Capital LLC the largest short position with 2.42 percent of the company’s shares.

The next most shorted UK listed companies were Sainsbury (J) Plc, Tullow Oil Plc, Hammerson Plc and Echo Energy Plc where the respective short positions were 7 percent, 6.9 percent, 6.7 percent and 6.1 percent respectively. The table shows the largest ten short positions in companies that are listed and trading on London Stock Exchange.

In The research was carried out by GraniteShares, a provider of leveraged ETPs that can short individual companies as well. The firm found that in terms of which fund managers had the most short positions on UK listed companies, the analysis revealed GLG Partners LP had the highest number with 21. This was followed by BlackRock Investment Management, Marshall Wace, AQR Capital Management and Jupiter Investment Management Limited with 14, 13, 11 and 11 short positions respectively.

Will Rhind, Founder and CEO of GraniteShares, said: “Over the past 12 months, we have seen some of the highest levels of market volatility for years, with continuation of the Covid-19 crisis and investors betting against companies with business models most at risk. The recent activity in Gamestop and other shorted names captures the current trend for democratization of finance with individual investors being able to pursue similar strategies as hedge funds and other professional investors.

“As such, we have seen a significant increase in sophisticated investors looking to short popular UK and US stocks. In the first quarter of this year, $295 million was traded through our products, which represents approximately a 40% increase on the $209 million traded in the last quarter of last year.”