Analyzing Short Interest in Occidental Petroleum Stock

On July 14, 2017, Occidental Petroleum’s (OXY) total shares shorted (or short interest) stood at ~10.9 million, and its average daily volume was ~4.8 million. The short interest ratio for OXY stock is ~2.3x. The average daily volume is calculated for the short interest reporting period from July 1, 2017, to July 14, 2017.

• Occidental Petroleum’s short interest ratio has a 52-week high of 4.8x and a 52-week low of ~2.0x.
• Occidental Petroleum’s short interest as a percentage of its 20-day average volume, 90-day average volume, and 180-day average volume was ~3.0x, 2.3x, and ~2.2x, respectively.

When looked from the perspective of shares outstanding, current short interest in Occidental Petroleum stock as a percentage of shares outstanding is ~1.4%.

Short interest in Occidental Petroleum stock as a percentage of shares outstanding is much lower when compared with other upstream stocks from the SPDR S&P Oil and Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP).

As seen in the above chart, short interest in Occidental Petroleum stock as a percentage of shares outstanding decreased from ~1.6% to ~1.4% in 2017, despite an ~16% decline in OXY’s stock price during the same period.

To learn more about OXY stock’s recent price performance, please refer to Part 5 of this series.

Oil and gas exploration and production companies Devon Energy (DVN), W&T Offshore (WTI), and Marathon Oil (MRO) have short interest as a percentage of shares outstanding of ~2.2%, ~7.4%, and ~6.1%, respectively. Like Occidental Petroleum, Devon Energy and Marathon Oil saw an increase in their short interest in the last one-month period.

The Direxion Daily Energy Bull 3X ETF (ERX) is a leveraged ETF that invests in domestic companies from the energy sector.