Short Interest in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEARCA:XLF) Rises By 26.6%

Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEARCA:XLF) saw a large increase in short interest in March. As of March 13th, there was short interest totaling 150,865,446 shares, an increase of 26.6% from the February 26th total of 119,121,653 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 67,116,440 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.2 days. Approximately 14.6% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Institutional Trading of Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Lewis Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 2.9% during the fourth quarter. Lewis Asset Management LLC now owns 6,537 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $358,000 after purchasing an additional 186 shares in the last quarter. True Vision MN LLC lifted its position in shares of Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. True Vision MN LLC now owns 13,833 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $758,000 after buying an additional 188 shares in the last quarter. Mather Group LLC. boosted its stake in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 5,109 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $280,000 after buying an additional 188 shares during the last quarter. Capitol Family Office Inc. boosted its stake in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 0.8% during the third quarter. Capitol Family Office Inc. now owns 23,903 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $1,288,000 after buying an additional 189 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Smallwood Wealth Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 20.8% during the 4th quarter. Smallwood Wealth Investment Management LLC now owns 1,097 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $60,000 after buying an additional 189 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.51% of the company’s stock.

Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund Stock Up 1.5%

XLF stock traded up $0.70 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $48.51. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 29,350,755 shares, compared to its average volume of 55,380,387. Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund has a 12 month low of $42.21 and a 12 month high of $56.51. The company has a 50 day moving average of $51.60 and a two-hundred day moving average of $52.92. The firm has a market capitalization of $50.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.25 and a beta of 0.99.

Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 25th. Investors of record on Monday, March 23rd were paid a dividend of $0.2515 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 23rd. This is a positive change from Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. This represents a $1.01 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.1%.

About Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund

The Fund seeks to provide investors with a low-cost passive approach for investing in a portfolio of equity securities of firms as represented by the Financial Select Sector Index.