The Top Shorts of 2012

As the year draws to a close I’m going to have a few data-centric posts about the market in 2012. First up, a look at the top short positions of the year.

Thanks to the number crunchers at Markit here’s a list of, in their words, the “15�companies [who] saw their share prices underperform the MSCI World by more than 70% in the weeks and months since their shares were targeted by short sellers.” Notable names include RadioShack (RSH), Molycorp (MCP) and Zynga (ZNGA):

(Note: The data is more than a week old, but the numbers are pretty much as they were.)

Of course, perhaps the most famous short of the year isn’t on the list; for those keeping track, shares of Herbalife (HLF) are now down about 27% since reports of Bill Ackman’s short position first surfaced.