Nasdaq Short Interest Rises to 23.16 Billion Shares

NEW YORK, Oct. 26. Nasdaq Inc. reported that open short interest across all 5,544 Nasdaq-listed securities reached 23,156,400,993 shares at the October 15, 2026 settlement date. This figure compares with 23,093,743,842 shares in 5,552 issues reported for the prior settlement date of September 30, 2026.

The company stated that the mid-October short interest represents 2.93 days of average daily volume, an increase from the 2.49 days recorded in the previous reporting period. The data covers the total number of shares sold short by all broker/dealers, regardless of their exchange affiliations.

Breaking down the figures by market tier, short interest in the 3,885 Nasdaq Global Market securities totaled 18,609,329,855 shares as of October 15, 2026. This was a slight decrease from the 18,657,486,300 shares in the same number of issues reported at the end of September. The days to cover metric for this segment rose to 3.49 days from 3.19 days in the prior period.

For the Nasdaq Capital Market, short interest in 1,659 securities stood at 4,547,071,138 shares at the October settlement date. This compares with 4,436,257,542 shares in 1,667 securities for the previous reporting period. The average daily volume calculation for this tier increased to 1.76 days from 1.30 days previously.

Nasdaq defines a short sale as the sale of a security that the seller does not own or any sale consummated by the delivery of a security borrowed by or for the account of the seller. The reported positions reflect these transactions across all broker/dealers.

The company noted that Nasdaq (Nasdaq: NDAQ) serves corporate clients, investment managers, banks, brokers, and exchange operators. Additional information on short interest positions and publication dates is available on the company's website.