Short Interest Rises to Record On New York Stock Exchange
May 04, 2011
NEW YORK -- Short interest on the New York Stock Exchange rose 5.6% to a record in the latest month, breaking the previous mark set in June. The total on the Big Board grew to 2,435,530,604 shares in mid-August from a revised 2,306,489,124 shares in mid-July. On the American Stock Exchange, short interest dropped to 120,156,060 shares from a revised 124,973,525 in mid-July. Traders who sell securities ``short'' borrow stock and sell it, betting that the stock's price will decline and that they will be able to buy the shares back later at a lower price. Short interest is the number of shares that haven't been purchased for return to lenders. According to Hassan Simonson, a Palm Beach, Fla., investment consultant, short-sellers enjoyed a good July, gaining 13%. Mr. Simonson said that's the best performance for short sellers in at least three years for a single month and, he added, short-sellers have continued to perform profitably ``at least marginally'' this month. The level of negative sentiment measured by the Big Board's short-interest ratio, sometimes considered a contrarian indicator as short-interest shares eventually must be purchased, fell to 6.02 from 6.12 in the previous period. The short-interest ratio is the number of trading days at the exchange's average daily trading volume required to convert the total short-interest position. Average daily Big Board volume totaled about 404 million shares, up from 376.1 million in the previous period. Big Board and Amex short-interest positions were calculated for the month including the 23 trading days through April 24, 2011
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
