Shorts on Bitfinex at a all time high!

[zimmah]

Short on ATH is a good thing isn't it?

Means they will need to buy them back sooner or later.

[ensurance982]

Short % of Float

Bitcoin: 0.2%
Altria: 0.70%
Apple: 1.10%
Citigroup: 1.10%
Kraft Foods: 1.60%
Freeport-McMoRan: 5.30%
AT&T: 6.20%

Most informative post I've read on Bitcointalk in ages. I had no idea so many people were shorting Apple! Where did you get this info?

Yeah I was surprised by this, as well. I think people may be using a relatively low margin. I suspect AAPL to be quite overvalued for some time, already. Their rise just doesn't seem reasonable, especially concerning their quality apparently declining over the last couple of years.

Apple is flying at the moment, the iPhone6 and 6+ sold massively moving them to a whole new level.
If I was going to short apple, it would be due to the apple watch, along with a lack of any new product in the last 5 years (other than the rubbish watch!)

Bitcoin shorting is a lot more dangerous than shorting apple though, the % swings in Apple are tiny in comparison to a big bitcoin move day!

Yeah I know their products are selling very well, everyone claims that their next release is going to fail again the number exceed the supply customers have to wait four weeks until their product arrives. I also have my doubts about the watch but it seems to so pretty decently.

[ensurance982]

Short % of Float

Bitcoin: 0.2%
Altria: 0.70%
Apple: 1.10%
Citigroup: 1.10%
Kraft Foods: 1.60%
Freeport-McMoRan: 5.30%
AT&T: 6.20%

Most informative post I've read on Bitcointalk in ages. I had no idea so many people were shorting Apple! Where did you get this info?

Yeah I was surprised by this, as well. I think people may be using a relatively low margin. I suspect AAPL to be quite overvalued for some time, already. Their rise just doesn't seem reasonable, especially concerning their quality apparently declining over the last couple of years.

Sorry for ignoring the questions about my source.  I don't check these threads often.

I get this data from the "Key Statistics" in a Yahoo Finance quote: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics

Lots of information can be gathered there.  You would be wise to check the debt amounts and return on assets amongst other things before investing in any stock.

As far as people saying that Apple is heavily shorted, if you look at the info provided, you'll see that Apple is actually not shorted very much.  1.1% is in line, or below what you would expect from a stock.  Freeport-McMoRan on the other hand, is being heavily shorted as sellers take advantage of falling crude prices.  Altria has a ridiculously low short % at 0.7% and Bitcoin's short % by comparison to stocks is outrageously low.  That was the point of my post.  I think we could see the short float go up by as much as 10x before it gets to point when it becomes dangerous.  I wouldn't think we'd see a true to the moon short squeeze unless we had a float of around 5%, or about 25x what it is currently...  However, this is assuming that bitfinex is the only place to short Bitcoin.  I suspect there are many other sites offering this as well, so it is quite possible the true Bitcoin short % of the float could be much higher, especially if you take into account the "lost bitcoins" that surely exist in high numbers.  Most regular people I send BTC to end up saying they deleted their wallet after not wanting to use Bitcoin anymore.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "it was only a couple dollars" as the reason why they didn't bother doing anything with the BTC before abandoning it.

That being said, Bitcoin is a little different, much more rare, harder to track, & less shorted due to it's nature.  In comparison to stocks, we have a long way to go if these numbers are accurate before a short squeeze is even a thought.  In comparison to other digital currencies    who knows.  Time will tell the story.

TL;DR

Only god knows how many BTC are truly in circulation or how many different sites allow shorting them, but a good guess is that short sellers aren't in the danger zone yet.

Wow, you really seem to know what you're talking about. I'm really new to all these things. But I really like to get to know more. You are saying that the shorts of Bitcoin are quite low in comparison? I think we have to consider that not all kinds are on the exchanges a lot of them are in cold storage, isn't that right?

[nrd525]

The 0.2% short of the total market value of Bitcoin isn't anywhere near true (unless futures are excluded - and if they are excluded, what is the reason for that?).  A lot of the shorting is on OkCoin futures.

What do these statistics mean?  How many bitcoins are being shorted at OkCoin?
https://www.okcoin.com/future/market.do?symbol=0

[damiano]

The 0.2% short of the total market value of Bitcoin isn't anywhere near true (unless futures are excluded - and if they are excluded, what is the reason for that?).  A lot of the shorting is on OkCoin futures.

What do these statistics mean?  How many bitcoins are being shorted at OkCoin?
https://www.okcoin.com/future/market.do?symbol=0

There is no real way to know

[nrd525]

Isn't there also a page that shows the positions of the top 20 or so okcoin future traders?  That would give you a baseline estimate.

[minerpumpkin]

It is quite interesting to see how the bears are still optimistic. There is already a ton of shorts open and the price isn't crashing any further, a few days ago someone even got margin-called for quite a big sum of $4 million. I think it is highly dangerous to be in the game at this point of time, especially on leverage.

[nrd525]

If this one person was shorting 13,000 bitcoin in OkCoin - it is likely that the total amount is at least 50,000
http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/33eepx/okcoin_futures_largest_contract_holder_margin/

[BayAreaCoins]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

[srgkrgkj]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

that guy lost around 300k from the falling bitcoin price shorts are going crazy as usual lol

[minerpumpkin]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

that guy lost around 300k from the falling bitcoin price shorts are going crazy as usual lol

How do you know that this transaction is from the guy who got his short margin called? I believe it is just some random big transaction we don't really know the source of. Sure, it could be some early adopter cashing out, but it could just be an exchange shifting around some money.

[molecular]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

that guy lost around 300k from the falling bitcoin price shorts are going crazy as usual lol

How do you know that this transaction is from the guy who got his short margin called? I believe it is just some random big transaction we don't really know the source of. Sure, it could be some early adopter cashing out, but it could just be an exchange shifting around some money.

or: someone with a huge wallet moved 101 BTC.

[minerpumpkin]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

that guy lost around 300k from the falling bitcoin price shorts are going crazy as usual lol

How do you know that this transaction is from the guy who got his short margin called? I believe it is just some random big transaction we don't really know the source of. Sure, it could be some early adopter cashing out, but it could just be an exchange shifting around some money.

or: someone with a huge wallet moved 101 BTC.

Interesting. I only now see that the assumed amount if BTC actually transacted is at 101 BTC. I've seen this metric being off a few times with transactions of my own. Is the algorithm behind this figure known? It's always great to read all the wild theories people develop when such a big transaction occurs from time to time.

[molecular]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

that guy lost around 300k from the falling bitcoin price shorts are going crazy as usual lol

How do you know that this transaction is from the guy who got his short margin called? I believe it is just some random big transaction we don't really know the source of. Sure, it could be some early adopter cashing out, but it could just be an exchange shifting around some money.

or: someone with a huge wallet moved 101 BTC.

Interesting. I only now see that the assumed amount if BTC actually transacted is at 101 BTC. I've seen this metric being off a few times with transactions of my own. Is the algorithm behind this figure known? It's always great to read all the wild theories people develop when such a big transaction occurs from time to time.

I bet part of the metric is the precision of the output amounts. High precision amounts have higher likelyhood of being the change output. 101 has much higher lower precision than 69,471.082201.
 
EDIT: fixed higher/lower mixup

[pereira4]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

that guy lost around 300k from the falling bitcoin price shorts are going crazy as usual lol

Thats what you get when you want to scalp the BTC price. Is best to hold and let time pass for at least a month before making the next move. All these "this is how to daytrade BTC" guys seem like scammers to me. Who has done solid gains day trading BTC? im yet to see that.

[damiano]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

that guy lost around 300k from the falling bitcoin price shorts are going crazy as usual lol

Thats what you get when you want to scalp the BTC price. Is best to hold and let time pass for at least a month before making the next move. All these "this is how to daytrade BTC" guys seem like scammers to me. Who has done solid gains day trading BTC? im yet to see that.

With leverage you can, but it depends how much the market moves.

If your leverage trading on Bitfinex it makes more sense in holding positions longer since it's 3:1, but if your on other platforms such as Okcoin where your using 20:1 it doesn't make sense in holding positions for that long.  Very rarely you can get into a position and not worry for a bit. 

[minerpumpkin]

Breath of fresh air for the shorts.... https://blockchain.info/tx/97facbd7e07c4f3140d9ea167c2e54d85bc5f6fd04d9774d80b1284b706920ff

that guy lost around 300k from the falling bitcoin price shorts are going crazy as usual lol

How do you know that this transaction is from the guy who got his short margin called? I believe it is just some random big transaction we don't really know the source of. Sure, it could be some early adopter cashing out, but it could just be an exchange shifting around some money.

or: someone with a huge wallet moved 101 BTC.

Interesting. I only now see that the assumed amount if BTC actually transacted is at 101 BTC. I've seen this metric being off a few times with transactions of my own. Is the algorithm behind this figure known? It's always great to read all the wild theories people develop when such a big transaction occurs from time to time.

I bet part of the metric is the precision of the output amounts. High precision amounts have higher likelyhood of being the change output. 101 has much higher precision than 69,471.082201.
 

Ah yes, that makes actually a lot of sense! I unfortunately can't quite remember the transaction where blockchain.info mis-guessed the amount if was transferring. Still interesting to see what this transaction may have accomplished for the owner of the address... maybe cashing out 101 BTC?

[ensurance982]

If this one person was shorting 13,000 bitcoin in OkCoin - it is likely that the total amount is at least 50,000
http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/33eepx/okcoin_futures_largest_contract_holder_margin/

Isn't it effectively suicide to play with such big sums in a market that's barely liquid enough to support those huge shorts? I mean, his stop seemed a bit poorly placed, if this rather small move has cost him that much! Can't imagine losing that much money!

[Chef Ramsay]

If this one person was shorting 13,000 bitcoin in OkCoin - it is likely that the total amount is at least 50,000
http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/33eepx/okcoin_futures_largest_contract_holder_margin/

Isn't it effectively suicide to play with such big sums in a market that's barely liquid enough to support those huge shorts? I mean, his stop seemed a bit poorly placed, if this rather small move has cost him that much! Can't imagine losing that much money!

Dude is either a retarded greedy bastard that is flat out stupid, making moves w/ inside knowledge or using play money.

[inca]

Or not a real trading account..