Apple short interest has risen steadily in recent weeks, even before the downgrade from Mizuho. There was a feeding frenzy for short-sellers, however, as the stock tumbled amid concern about the valuation of mega-tech stocks. Now one Apple perma-bull has outright blamed the FANG acronym and seems to also place some blame on the more recent FAAMG acronym for what he says is the company’s “depressed valuation.”

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Apple short interest on the rise

Financial analytics firm S3 Partners reported earlier this week that Apple short interest was already rising before Mizuho Securities’ downgrade. Research head Ihor Dusaniwsky said short-sellers had been building their positions since the end of May. In fact, Apple short interest surpassed $9 billion for the first time since May 2016. Apparently, they’ve been bettering that investors would sell Apple stock in May and go away.

After the increase in Apple short interest, it was the world’s third biggest short as of Friday at $9.1 billion. The stock only trails Alibaba Group with a global short position of $16.7 billion and Tesla with a position of $10.5 billion. Apple short interest did come down a bit through Friday, however, as it peaked at $9.7 million toward the end of May. However, Apple short interest is up 54% or $3.2 billion year over year.

Short-sellers also started building their latest positions suddenly, according to S3 Partners, as Dusaniwsky reported that most of the increase came in April. He said they added $2.3 billion in less than six weeks.

Apple short interest gradually ticks lower

Despite the sudden increase in Apple short interest, he added that over the last year and a half, it has been trending downward, although with “occasional pops in short volume that evaporated as quickly as they arrived.”

Between 2009 and 2011, Apple short interest averaged only $3.2 billion as its stock price grew nearly five-fold. Then between 2011 and 2015, the iPhone maker started to test the $100 per share level before breaking through and peaking at $133 in February 2015. According to Dusaniwsky, Apple short interest also hit some key milestones between 2011 and 2015 and averaged more than $9.1 billion. It reached $12.1 billion in 2012 and then peaked the next year at $18.4 billion, and it was then that short-sellers started to cover their positions, he explained.