short interest

American  

noun

Finance.

1. the total amount by which a single seller or all sellers are short in a particular stock or commodity or in the market as a whole.

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Etymology

Origin of short interest

An Americanism dating back to 1885–90

Example Sentences

The average short interest for an S&P 500 stock is about 4%.

From Barron's

Moves with Planet Labs stock can be exacerbated by high short interest.

From Barron's

And traders have upped their bets against Oracle’s shares: While only 1.5% of its total float, short interest on the stock has climbed from 15.7 million shares at the end of May to 24.4 million shares currently, according to FactSet.

From MarketWatch

Matthew Unterman, managing director at S3 Partners, wrote in a note earlier last week that Oracle’s increasing short interest and widening CDS spreads indicate the company is “trading as a proxy for investor anxiety around AI infrastructure leverage, making it a barometer for broader credit risk in the megacap tech complex.”

From MarketWatch

Charter has one of the highest levels of short interest relative to its float in the S&P 500, indicating bearish sentiment.

From Barron's