Twitter’s Short Interest Is At A 52 Week High; How To React

Twitter, at one point, was on top of the world. The social network was driving users, innovating quality online income streams and more. However, throughout the year 2015, the story surrounding Twitter has become quite a bit different. The company has run into new user issues which have caused the CEO to resign, and now, they're having a hard time finding a new CEO to fill his place. Now, the short interest on the stock has climbed to a 52 week high. Today, we'll talk about the issues that Twitter was and is still having, the details on the short interest, what we can expect to see moving forward and how to take advantage of the trends.

Twitter Faces Very Real Problems

Twitter's problems started late last year when new users stopped signing up for the service. While Twitter made several attempts to find a solution to the problem, they simply weren't able to do so. Ultimately, this caused big concerns among investors and led to the resignation of the company's CEO, Dick Costolo. Since then the new user debacle hasn't gotten any better. In fact, the company's CFO, Anthony Noto announced to investors that they can't expect to see any extravagant growth in new users in the short term; which proved to be even more concerning for investors. However, new users aren't Twitter's only problems.

When Dick Costolo resigned as CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey picked up the position as interim CEO. However, he can't hold the spot forever. The reality is that Jack Dorsey is the permanent CEO of Square; a company that plans to go public by the end of the year. So, his hands are already full at the moment! Twitter needs to find someone else. Which leads to the next problem. The new CEO of Twitter will have to be someone that has created an incredible name for themselves. However, I don't see why someone who has created a great name for themselves taking the position as CEO of a company that is struggling so much. After all, if the new CEO can't pick things up, taking the position would tarnish his reputation. So, at this point, Twitter has been without a permanent CEO for more than 100 days, and until they find one, investor sentiment is going to continue declining.

Twitter Short Interest Reaches A 52 Week High

Tracking short interest is incredibly important. That's because when investors are short on a stock, they are expecting declines. Therefore, when short interest goes up, we can expect slowed gains or movement in the downward direction. With that said, 40.4 million shares of Twitter are being sold short. That equates to almost 7% of the total number of sharesavailable and represents the highest level of short interest the stock has seen over the past year!

What We Can Expect To See Moving Forward

Moving forward, I'm not expecting to see very much positive news out of Twitter. The reality is that for this stock to grow, Twitter will need to not only find a new CEO, but find a way to get the user issue under control. This is going to take quite a bit of time.

What You Can Do To Take Advantage Of The Trends

We know that Twitter is likely to continue on the downward trend. We also know that even on downtrends, stocks can have good days. With that said, your best bet would be to watch for a day of solid growth. Following this event, you're likely to see a day of big declines. So, take advantage of the declines with put options.