NYSE Short Interest Surges 7% To All Time High

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit: After the close today, the New York Stock Exchange released short interest levels for the month of May, and as the chart below shows, short interest surged by 7% to a new all time high. While the record level of short interest is not a new story, this month was somewhat unique in that it was the tenth largest monthly increase in short interest over the last 16 years.

Also notable is the fact that in the last three months, we have seen two monthly increases that qualify in the top ten overall (March 2007). It is hard to imagine that investors are overly bullish with short interest hitting record highs month after month.

click to enlarge

Comments

[eric courtney:]

iT IS HARD TO RELY ON "TRIED AND TRUE ' STRATEGIES ANY MORE .THAT GOES FOR SHORT INTEREST AND POTENTIAL FUTURE STOCK DEMAND .LOOK AT THE RECENT QUARTER EPS GUIDANCE AND ANALYST ESTIMATE FARCE . WITH ALL THE M&A ETC SHORT ARB FIGURES ARE HIDING ANY REAL SHORT ANALYSIS. I GUESS THE FIXED INCOME ARENA IS THE LAST REFUGE OF ANY PREDICTABILITY AND THATS A STRETCH .

2007 May 22 09:51 AM

[the homeles...:]

When was there ever " tried and true" on Wall Street?

2007 May 22 10:30 AM

[Solution:]

When market is so high, it is reasonable to hedge part of the profit. Short interest wil keep on incrasing as stock market going higher. It will not cover as most people thinks. It will cover only when market drops to a level that people don't need to hedge.

2007 May 22 06:27 PM

[David Lentz:]

How about, instead of a chart of absolute shares short, a chart showing the shares short as a percentage of outstanding shares, or possibly against average daily trading volume (which might be easier to calculate). This would wash out the tremendous inflation in shares from splits, IPOs etc over the years and perhaps show a different result in-so-far-as "record" short interest goes.

2007 May 23 08:14 AM

[Paul Meisel:]

Anybody know how much the new "short ETFs" contribute to this?

2007 May 24 04:38 AM