DaVita HealthCare Partners Stock Sees Short Interest Move 17.3% Lower - DaVita (NYSE:DVA)

The most recent short interest data has been released for the 05/13/2016 settlement date, which shows a 669,815 share decrease in total short interest for DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc (DVA), to 3,211,439, a decrease of 17.26% since 04/29/2016. Total short interest is just one way to look at short data; another metric that we here at

Dividend Channel

find particularly useful is the "days to cover" metric because it considers both the total shares short and the average daily volume of shares traded. The number of shares short is then compared to the average daily volume, in order to calculate the total number of trading days (at the average volume) it would take to close out all of the open short positions if every share traded represented a short position being closed. Average daily volume for DVA at the 05/13/2016 settlement increased to 1,252,822, as compared to 790,045 at the 04/29/2016 report. That brought "days to cover" down to 2.56, a 47.82% decrease from the 4.91 days to cover calculated at the previous short interest data release.

The below chart shows the historical "days to cover" for DVA at previous short interest release dates:

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A decreased "days to cover" value could indicate that short sellers are no longer expecting the same decline in stock price they once were, or it could also indicate a long bet elsewhere was closed where DVA had been shorted as a hedge.

The chart below shows the one year performance of DVA shares, versus its 200 day moving average. Looking at this chart, DVA's low point in its 52 week range is $61.36 per share, with $84.40 as the 52 week high point — that compares with a last trade of $77.42.

According to the ETF Finder at ETF Channel, DVA makes up 3.38% of the iShares U.S. Healthcare Providers ETF (IHF) which is up by about 1.2% on the day Wednesday.

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