Is there a daily record of short trading?
We are all familiar with the record volume of shares that traded on a given day. It is reported as a running total throughout the day and at the close. But how much of that was short volume? How can I get that volume number, and why is it not reported already?
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This information is reported, but it is not as highly publicised as total volume for two reasons. First, more people are interested in buying a stock than shorting one and shorting a stock has unlimited risk. Second, every stock trade includes a sale and a buy, so when someone shorts a stock there is a corresponding buy associated with it. So it is already represented in the daily volume.
The two statistics you want to look for are:
Short Volume, which is the number of stock trades which were initiated by a short sale.
Short Interest, which is the number of short transactions which are desired, but haven't executed yet.
Between these two numbers, you have the entirety of the short sale trades entered on a stock for the day.