Persimmon short-sellers stake £325m on falling share price

[Tony]

Short-sellers have staked more than £325m on Persimmon's stock falling ahead of the housebuilder's half-year results this week.

More...Persimmon short-sellers stake £325m on falling share price

[willyj]

To profit from the stock price going down, short sellers can borrow a security and sell it, expecting that it will decrease in value so that they can buy it back at a lower price and keep the difference. The short seller owes their broker, who usually in turn has borrowed the shares from some other investor who is holding his shares long; the broker itself seldom actually purchases the shares to lend to the short seller.[1] The lender of the shares does not lose the right to sell the shares.
Short (finance) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Tony]

Thanks for the link Willy, I reckon it is a fairly safe bet that Persimmons are going to announce terrible results and the shares will go down

[willyj]

Aha!
Up 10% to 338p against all predictions! A cautiously optimistic 1/2 year report.