Short Sellers Not Buying Into eBay & Twitter

The latest

data are out, and it seems the number of

and

shares held short dropped sharply between the June 15 and June 30 settlement dates. On the other hand,

, the 800-pound gorilla among the leading social media companies based in the United States, saw a noticeable bump in its shares short. Below we take a quick look at how these three stocks have fared recently and what analysts expect from them. That is followed by a glance at the short interest moves in other social media stocks.

A drop of more than 18 percent brought short interest in this San Jose, California-based online commerce company to less than 15 million for the first time since early in the year. The nearly 13.78 million was a little over 1 percent of the float, as well as the lowest short interest in at least a year. In the period, Morgan Stanley was cautiously

after the PayPal Spin-off. eBay's market capitalization now is near $75.7 billion, and the long-term earnings per share (EPS) growth forecast is more than 10 percent. The operating margin is better than the industry average. Of the 42 analysts who follow the stock that were surveyed by Thomson/First Call, half recommend buying shares, with 10 of them rating the stock at Strong Buy. The mean price target, or where analysts expect the share price to go, is only marginally higher than the current share price. Short sellers watched the share price rise more than 4 percent but give back most of that gain during the two-week settlement period. The stock now is up about 11 percent year to date, and it has underperformed Amazon.com but outperformed Overstock.com and the broader markets over the past six months.

Shares sold short in this social networking giant grew more than 7 percent to almost 27.46 million by the end of June. That was more than 1 percent of the float, and the highest level of short interest since March. At the average daily volume, it would take less than a day to cover all short positions. Marketers continue to seek a way to

players like Facebook. The company has a market cap of about $246.5 billion. While its long-term EPS growth forecast is more than 27 percent, the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio remains very high. Of 49 analysts surveyed, 16 of them rate the stock at Strong Buy, and 27 others also recommend buying shares. A move to their mean price target would be a gain of about 10 percent for the shares. That consensus target price also would be an all-time high for Facebook's stock. Facebook shares ended the two-week period more than 6% higher, despite slipping as the month wound down. The stock is up more than 12 percent year to date, as of the end of last week. Over the past six months, it has outperformed Google and Twitter shares, as well as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

Short interest in this micro-blogging service provider retreated more than 9 percent during the period. The around 20.80 million shares short at month's end, the smallest number of shares short so far this year, was more than 4 percent of the float. It would take about a day to cover all short positions. Speculation about a

continued during the period. The company currently has a market cap of around $23.5 billion. Note that the return on equity and the operating margin both remain in negative territory, but the long-term EPS growth forecast is about 69 percent. Of the 39 analysts polled, 15 recommend buying Twitter shares, while only one rates the stock at Underperform. The analysts' mean price target is about 24 percent higher than the current share price. Note though that shares traded higher than that target before the sell-off in April. Twitter's share price ended the two-week period more than 4 percent higher, though it has pulled back since. It is now down more than 2 percent year to date. Over the past six months, the stock has underperformed the likes of Facebook, Google and LinkedIn, as well as the broader markets.

While short interest also increased somewhat in Groupon in late June, it surged in MeetMe, United Online. But short sellers appeared to be losing interest in Angie's List, Google, LinkedIn, Pandora, Shutterfly, Yelp and Zynga during the two-week period. Furthermore, note that the number of U.S.-listed shares (or ADSs) sold short of Chinese social media company Baidu grew in the final weeks of the month, while short interest in Renren, Sina, Sohu.com, Weibo, YouKu Todou and YY shrank.

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