Short sellers burnt as banks surge

估计这两天银行股板块会非常精彩，，，

zt --telegraph

Bank shares continued their astounding recovery with the largest one-day surge in four months after Citi upgraded Lloyds Banking Group and hopes gathered that President Barack Obama\'s plan to absorb toxic assets would stabilise lenders\' balance sheets.

Lloyds led the bounce with a 50pc rise, climbing 33.8 to 100.9p. Royal Bank of Scotland put on 36pc, or 5.6 to 21.3p, and Barclays recovered another 19pc, or 17 to 107p. In just six days trading, all three lenders have more than doubled in value.

Banks have now led the stock market higher for two sessions in a row, accounting for half the blue chip FTSE 100 index\'s 100 point rise to 4,295 yesterday.

The unprecedented surge caught out short sellers of financial stocks, who have made estimated losses of around £130m. Figures from Data Explorers, the research firm that tracks stock lending – much of which will have been with hedge funds and other shorters – show that some 2.3pc of Barclays\' shares were borrowed between Tuesday and Friday of last week, as the bank\'s stock went into freefall.

Barclays\' record single-day rise of 73pc on Monday would have caught the shorters off-guard.

Although some funds, like Lansdowne Partners which made a £9m profit, did close their positions early enough research from Data Explorers shows that only 0.02pc of the stock was bought back on Monday, when some 5.79pc remained on loan.

At yesterday\'s prices, funds with short positions in Barclays will have lost around £80m in a week.

Confirmation that hedge funds have been hit came from Paul Marshall of Marshall Wace, who told the Treasury Select Committee on Tuesday that some funds would be sitting on significant losses after the sharp rebound in Barclays shares.

Shorters have also been stung by the recovery at Lloyds and RBS.

The amount of Lloyds stock on loan rose from 0.88pc to 1.6pc last week and 1.55pc remained on loan on Monday – the last day for which data is available. At RBS, stock on loan jumped from 0.22pc to 1pc and 0.93pc was on loan on Monday.

Both RBS and Lloyds shares recovered over the week as shorters increased their positions. Extrapolating from each bank\'s closing prices yesterday, funds with short positions appear to have made a £20m loss on RBS and £30m loss on Lloyds. Hedge fund Paulson & Co made a profit of around £100m on RBS after closing out a short position on Friday.

After a week in which institutions feared banks would need more capital and faced nationalisation, shareholders appear now to have registered a belated vote of confidence in the Government\'s second bail-out and expected plans for a bad bank in the US.