September Short Interest Decreases At NYSE & AMEX (NYX, NDAQ)

The short interest data for the NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX) and the American Stock Exchange are both out and they are both showing something we haven’t seen for some time:  short interest declined, if you can believe it.  For months this was a growing number as the market was rising. 

The NYSE Group showed short interest on the September 14 settlement date listed as 11,841,051,529 shares, down from 12,466,511,521 as of August 15, 2007.  This is the first drop from when January 2007 short interest of 9.68 Billion shares fell to 9.595 Billion shares in February 2007.

Over at the AMEX, there was also a drop in the total short interest.  August 15, 2007 showed 1,194,902,117 shares in the total short interest, yet today’s numbers shows 1,032,872,816 shares as of the September 14, 2007 settlement date.  The last drop seen on AMEX short interest was listed when the 877,477,463 shares short in March 2007 fell to 865,833,907 in April 2007.

It appears that maybe short sellers figured it out this time and decided that being short stocks going into a rate cutting cycle wasn’t a good play.  The short interest report for NASDAQ (NASDAQ:NDAQ) will not be out until next week, so stay tuned.  Throughout the night or tomorrow we’ll have some individual short interest data.

Jon C. Ogg
September 20, 2007