Palantir’s Miserable Week Mints Billions for Struggling Shorts

Since hitting a record on Aug. 12, shares of the data analysis and software firm are down more than 17%. The drop has given short sellers more than $1.6 billion in profits, according to data from S3 Partners LLC. But that barely dents the $4.5 billion in paper losses traders have put up betting against Palantir this year, S3 data shows. Short interest as a percentage of Palantir’s float, a measure of how many shares are available to borrow and bet against, has fallen to about 2.5% from nearly 5% a year ago.