Wetin be FINRA short interest? Days to cover

— Short interest na di total number of shares for one stock wey dem don sell short and never buy back — di running balance of open short positions, wey dem dey report to FINRA two times for month. Na im be di standard measure of how heavy traders position against one stock, dem dey read am through two ratios: days to cover and short percent of float. Every figure here come from dat regulatory dataset, di query behind each number na just one click away.

Wetin Be Short Interest for Stocks?

Short sale dey turn di normal way wey dem dey trade upside down: pesin wey dey short go borrow shares, sell dem for today price, and dey plan to buy dem back cheaper. To buy dem back — "covering" — na to return di borrowed stock give di lender. Until dat one happen, di position go remain open, and every open short position for every brokerage dey count towards di stock short interest.

Short interest na level — na balance wey never clear for one particular time, like di balance for loan. E dey rise wen new shorts open, e dey fall wen shorts cover, and e no dey talk anytin about wetin happen for any single day trading. Dis one make am di opposite of daily short volume, wey be flow of marked-short trades wey mostly na routine market-maker plumbing; pipo dey always confuse di two, and we dey measure both for one ticker inside short interest vs. short volume. Two normalizations dey make di raw share count fit compare across stocks — short percent of float and days to cover — both dey measured for real tickers below.

One risk note suppose dey inside any definition: short dey lose money wen di price rise, and price no get ceiling, so di loss for uncovered short no get limit — e no be like long position, wia di most wey you fit lose na wetin you pay.

How Dem Dey Measure and Report Short Interest?

Short interest na regulatory disclosure, no be exchange feed. FINRA Rule 4560 dey force every member brokerage to report the open short positions wey dey dia books two times for one month, as of one planned settlement date: one for mid-month, one for month-end. The rule cover all equity securities, listed and over-the-counter, and e dey count positions, no be trades — one firm dey report wetin dia customers and dia own desks still dey owe for borrowed shares as of that date, no matter wetin dem do in between. FINRA dey compile the filings into one file per settlement date: one row per security, wey carry shares short, one average-daily-volume figure and the days-to-cover ratio wey dem build from the two. The FINRA files guide dey cover the source mechanics; the most-shorted leaderboards dey read the newest print:

WITH (SELECT max(settlement_date) FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest) AS latest
SELECT concat(monthName(latest), ' ', toString(toDayOfMonth(latest)), ', ', toString(toYear(latest))) AS latest_settlement_date,
       count() AS tickers_reported,
       multiIf(count() < 1000, toString(count()),
               concat(toString(intDiv(count(), 1000)), ',', lpad(toString(count() % 1000), 3, '0'))) AS tickers_reported_fmt,
       round(sum(si) / 1e9, 1) AS total_shares_short_b
FROM
(
    SELECT ticker, max(short_interest) AS si
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    WHERE settlement_date = latest
    GROUP BY ticker
)

As of the June 30, 2026 settlement, the file cover 22,207 tickers wey carry combined 56.8 billion shares of open short positions — the US equity market entire short book for one twice-monthly snapshot.

Short Interest Reporting Dates

"Two times for one month" mean two rules: di mid-month settlement dey land for 15th, dem dey move am back to di working day wey dey before am if di 15th fall for weekend or holiday, and di month-end settlement dey land for di last working day of di month. Di file dey reach public days to weeks later. Every settlement print for di last five months, with im weekday and di days wey pass before di data land here:

SELECT concat(monthName(d), ' ', toString(toDayOfMonth(d)), ', ', toString(toYear(d))) AS settlement_date,
       weekday,
       securities_on_file,
       multiIf(securities_on_file < 1000, toString(securities_on_file),
               concat(toString(intDiv(securities_on_file, 1000)), ',', lpad(toString(securities_on_file % 1000), 3, '0'))) AS securities_on_file_fmt,
       publication_lag_days
FROM
(
    SELECT settlement_date AS d,
           formatDateTime(settlement_date, '%W') AS weekday,
           uniqExact(ticker) AS securities_on_file,
           dateDiff('day', settlement_date, toDate(min(_ingest_time))) AS publication_lag_days
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    WHERE settlement_date >= today() - INTERVAL 5 MONTH
    GROUP BY settlement_date
)
ORDER BY d

9 settlement dates for five months, di business-day adjustment dey show for weekday column (a settlement wey dem date 13th na mid-month print wey dem pull back from a weekend 15th). Di newest one, wey settle June 30, 2026 on a Tuesday, cover 22,207 securities and e take 11 days to arrive; di one before am take 16 days.

Di consequence: any short-interest number wey you dey read today dey describe positioning as of di last settlement, one to several weeks back (we measure di lag for every recent print). "Current" short interest no dey current at all.

One Example Wey Dey Work: Tesla Short Interest

Definitions dey stick well-well when you tie am to one ticker. Tesla for every settlement of di last two years — short interest dey next to average daily volume inside di same file:

SELECT concat(monthName(d), ' ', toString(toDayOfMonth(d)), ', ', toString(toYear(d))) AS settlement_date,
       short_interest_m_shares,
       avg_daily_volume_m_shares
FROM
(
    SELECT settlement_date AS d,
           round(max(short_interest) / 1e6, 1) AS short_interest_m_shares,
           round(max(avg_daily_volume) / 1e6, 1) AS avg_daily_volume_m_shares
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    WHERE ticker = 'TSLA'
      AND settlement_date >= today() - INTERVAL 2 YEAR
    GROUP BY settlement_date
)
ORDER BY d

As of di June 30, 2026 settlement, dem don sell 79.1 million TSLA shares short against 46 million shares of average daily volume; two years before dat time, di balance bin stand at 87 million. Count di data points: 47 settlement dates — two for every month, nothing dey between.

Short Percent of Float and Days to Cover

Days to cover — wey be di short interest ratio — na im dey divide short interest by average daily volume: for di normal pace wey di stock dey trade, how many full sessions e go take before every open short fit buy back? Di file dey calculate am for you, wit one convention wey good make you know — e dey start from 1.00 and e no dey ever print below.

Short percent of float dey divide short interest by di float — shares wey dey outstanding minus insider stakes, restricted stock and oda closely held blocks — and e dey ask wetin be di fraction of di tradable ownership pie wey dem don sell short. One caveat, di same one wey di stock float explainer take start: no filing dey report any float. Companies dey report shares outstanding every quarter; every float figure wey you dey see na vendor subtraction. Di panel below dey divide by di audited denominator instead — basic shares outstanding from di latest quarterly filing — wey dey make each percentage a conservative floor, since float no dey ever big pass shares outstanding.

WITH (SELECT max(settlement_date) FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest) AS latest,
shares AS
(
    SELECT tk AS ticker,
           argMax(basic_shares_outstanding, (filing_date, period_end)) AS shares_out
    FROM global_markets.stocks_income_statements
    ARRAY JOIN tickers AS tk
    WHERE tk IN ('AAPL', 'KO', 'MSFT', 'NVDA', 'TSLA', 'GME')
      AND timeframe = 'quarterly'
      AND filing_date >= today() - INTERVAL 1 YEAR
      AND basic_shares_outstanding > 0
    GROUP BY tk
),
si AS
(
    SELECT ticker,
           max(short_interest) AS shares_short,
           max(days_to_cover) AS dtc
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    WHERE settlement_date = latest
      AND ticker IN ('AAPL', 'KO', 'MSFT', 'NVDA', 'TSLA', 'GME')
    GROUP BY ticker
)
SELECT si.ticker AS ticker,
       round(si.shares_short / 1e6, 1) AS shares_short_m,
       round(shares.shares_out / 1e6, 0) AS shares_outstanding_m,
       multiIf(shares.shares_out < 1e9, toString(toUInt64(round(shares.shares_out / 1e6, 0))),
               concat(toString(intDiv(toUInt64(round(shares.shares_out / 1e6, 0)), 1000)), ',',
                      lpad(toString(toUInt64(round(shares.shares_out / 1e6, 0)) % 1000), 3, '0'))) AS shares_outstanding_m_fmt,
       round(100.0 * si.shares_short / shares.shares_out, 2) AS short_pct_of_shares_out,
       round(si.dtc, 2) AS days_to_cover
FROM si
INNER JOIN shares ON si.ticker = shares.ticker
ORDER BY indexOf(['AAPL', 'KO', 'MSFT', 'NVDA', 'TSLA', 'GME'], si.ticker)

Read Tesla own row, di fifth one: 79.1 million shares short against 3,225 million shares outstanding na 2.45% wey dem sell short, on days to cover of 1.72 — di classic mega-cap shape, a share count wey sound enormous for isolation dey sit on deep liquidity and a huge share base. Nvidia dey make di point louder: di largest raw short balance of di six, 310.1 million shares, still land at 1.28% of shares outstanding on 1.99 days to cover. Di raw number alone no dey tell you anything.

GameStop na di outlier: 12.48% of shares outstanding wey dem sell short — several times any oda name for di table — on 10.75 days to cover.

Wetin Dem Call High Short Interest?

No official threshold dey — "high" na just convention, and di honest way to set am na to measure di field. Days to cover across every liquid ticker for di latest file (at least one million shares of average daily volume):

WITH (SELECT max(settlement_date) FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest) AS latest
SELECT count() AS liquid_tickers,
       multiIf(count() < 1000, toString(count()),
               concat(toString(intDiv(count(), 1000)), ',', lpad(toString(count() % 1000), 3, '0'))) AS liquid_tickers_fmt,
       round(quantileExact(0.5)(dtc), 1) AS median_days_to_cover,
       round(quantileExact(0.9)(dtc), 1) AS p90_days_to_cover,
       min(dtc) AS lowest_days_to_cover,
       countIf(dtc >= 10) AS names_at_10_plus
FROM
(
    SELECT ticker, max(days_to_cover) AS dtc, max(avg_daily_volume) AS adv
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    WHERE settlement_date = latest
    GROUP BY ticker
)
WHERE adv >= 1000000

Across 3,202 liquid tickers di median na 2.4 days to cover, di 90th percentile na 5.9 days, and di lowest value print 1 — di floor. Only 45 names reach ten days or more: a couple of days na routine, a double-digit ratio genuinely crowded.

Now di other ratio — liquid names with a recent quarterly filing on record, dem bucket am by short interest as a percentage of shares outstanding, each bucket im median days to cover dey follow.

WITH (SELECT max(settlement_date) FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest) AS latest,
si AS
(
    SELECT ticker,
           max(short_interest) AS shares_short,
           max(avg_daily_volume) AS adv,
           max(days_to_cover) AS dtc
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    WHERE settlement_date = latest
    GROUP BY ticker
    HAVING adv >= 1000000
),
shares AS
(
    SELECT tk AS ticker,
           argMax(basic_shares_outstanding, (filing_date, period_end)) AS shares_out
    FROM global_markets.stocks_income_statements
    ARRAY JOIN tickers AS tk
    WHERE timeframe = 'quarterly'
      AND filing_date >= today() - INTERVAL 9 MONTH
      AND basic_shares_outstanding > 0
    GROUP BY tk
    HAVING shares_out >= 10000000
),
joined AS
(
    SELECT si.ticker AS ticker,
           100.0 * si.shares_short / shares.shares_out AS short_pct,
           si.dtc AS dtc
    FROM si
    INNER JOIN shares ON si.ticker = shares.ticker
    WHERE 100.0 * si.shares_short / shares.shares_out <= 50
)
SELECT multiIf(short_pct < 2, 'Under 2%',
               short_pct < 5, '2-5%',
               short_pct < 10, '5-10%',
               short_pct < 20, '10-20%',
               '20%+') AS short_pct_bucket,
       count() AS tickers,
       round(100.0 * count() / sum(count()) OVER (), 1) AS pct_of_tickers,
       round(quantileExact(0.5)(dtc), 2) AS median_days_to_cover
FROM joined
GROUP BY short_pct_bucket
ORDER BY min(short_pct)

Di field spread wide here pass wetin most readers dey expect. Only 11.9% of dis stocks carry under 2% of dia shares outstanding short; di two middle buckets (28.6% and 29%) hold di bulk of di field between 2% and 10%; 8.9% — 169 names — run above 20%. If you measure am against float, every one of dose numbers go higher.

Di last column na di payoff: median days to cover dey climb with every step up di ladder, from 1.83 days for di least-shorted bucket to 5.37 for di most-shorted. Two different denominators — one na share base, di other na volume tape — rank di field di same way: a stock wey dem heavily short relative to im shares typically dey also slower to unwind (days to cover get im own explainer).

GameStop, January 2021: How Squeeze Show for Data

Every time dem dey talk about high short interest, dem dey always point to dis same example. GameStop record for di 10 settlements from November 2020 reach March 2021, plus di closing price for each of those dates (prices as dem trade am, before GME later do 4-for-1 split):

WITH px AS
(
    SELECT toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS day,
           argMax(toFloat64(close), window_start) AS close_px
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'GME'
      AND window_start >= '2020-11-01 00:00:00'
      AND window_start < '2021-04-02 00:00:00'
      AND toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) BETWEEN 9 AND 15
    GROUP BY day
),
si AS
(
    SELECT settlement_date,
           round(max(short_interest) / 1e6, 1) AS shares_short_m,
           round(max(days_to_cover), 1) AS days_to_cover
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    WHERE ticker = 'GME'
      AND settlement_date >= '2020-11-01'
      AND settlement_date <= '2021-03-31'
    GROUP BY settlement_date
)
SELECT concat(monthName(si.settlement_date), ' ', toString(toDayOfMonth(si.settlement_date)), ', ', toString(toYear(si.settlement_date))) AS settlement_date,
       si.shares_short_m AS shares_short_m,
       si.days_to_cover AS days_to_cover,
       round(px.close_px, 2) AS gme_close
FROM si
INNER JOIN px ON si.settlement_date = px.day
ORDER BY si.settlement_date

Di setup dey for di top rows: for di November 13, 2020 settlement, 67.5 million GME shares dey short, days to cover stand for 14, and di stock close for $11.02. Di balance just dey build enter year-end — 71.2 million shares for di December 31, 2020 settlement, wey be di biggest among di 10 prints — with di stock for $18.81.

Den di table turn upside down. For di January 29, 2021 settlement, as di stock close for $328.24, short interest print 21.4 million shares — e be like one-third of di year-end balance — and days to cover don collapse go 1, wey be di floor. Both sides of di ratio move at once: shorts cover (di numerator fall) and volume explode (di denominator rise). By di March 31, 2021 settlement, di balance don sit for 10.7 million.

Two lessons wey price chart no go fit teach you. Di record na retrospective — di January 15, 2021 snapshot, wey dem take as di stock dey $35.49, reach public only after di usual multi-week lag. And low days-to-cover reading no always mean say everyting calm: di ratio hit im floor for di wildest part of di episode, e dey describe serious volume instead of small position. Di full squeeze anatomy dey walk through those weeks.

Short Interest FAQ

Wetin be high short interest?

No official cutoff dey. For di latest settlement, di median liquid US ticker show 2.4 days to cover, and na only 45 reach ten days or more. For di oda ratio, 8.9% of filing-backed liquid stocks carry more dan 20% of shares outstanding short — na di zone wey most desks dey call heavily shorted.

When short interest reporting dates dey happen?

Two times for month: di 15th (dem dey move am back to di previous business day if e fall for weekend or holiday) and di last business day of di month. Brokerages dey report open positions as of those settlement dates under FINRA Rule 4560, and dem dey publish di file days to weeks later — di newest print here settle June 30, 2026 and e arrive 11 days later.

Wetin be short percent of float?

Na short interest wey dem divide by di float, di shares wey dey free to trade. No filing dey report a float, so every published version na vendor estimate. If dem measure am against audited shares outstanding — wey no fit ever small pass di float — Tesla latest print na 2.45% and GameStop own na 12.48%.

Wetin be days to cover?

Na short interest wey dem divide by average daily volume: di sessions of typical trading wey e go take for every open short to buy back. Tesla latest print dey work out to 1.72 days, and di file dey floor di ratio at 1.00.

Short interest and short volume na di same thing?

No. Short interest dey count open positions at settlement dates — na level, two times for month. Short volume dey count shares wey dem sell short each day — na flow, and plenty of am na market-maker hedging (both, measured).

Every panel wey dey above na stored query — open di SQL wey dey under am, swap in any ticker, and re-run am for di Strasmore terminal.