Short Interest Ratios And Short Selling Secret

Short Interest Ratios And Short Selling Secret

by Ahmad Hassam

Short selling is a way to make money when a security price starts falling. When you expect a stock to fall in price, you borrow it from your broker and sell it. After sometimes buy it back in order to return it to your broker. The difference between the selling price and the buying price in this case is your capital gain.



Short selling works if the price continues to fall. If the price does not fall or retraces after sometime, you can make a hefty loss on your short position. The loans that are taken in order to go short have to be repaid! If the lender asks them or the price goes up, the trader has to buy back shares in order to make the repayment. Now, the harder it becomes to get the right number of shares in the market, the more desperate the trader will become and the higher the prices can go.



Now, in other markets like the currencies, futures or the options market, you don't have to borrow the security in order to go short. You can straight away go short by selling that security or currency in the market. Now, short selling in stocks is done by investors with the expectation of a making a capital gain when they expect that stock price to go down in the near future. Short selling is also done by the fund managers to hedge their stock portfolios.



There is something very important that you need to keep an eye on when you go short selling. It is known as Short Interest Ratios. This will help you monitor the rate of short selling in the market. If the rate is too high, it means that too many investors are taking short positions and you need to avoid it. New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ, both report the short interest in stocks listed on them,however, this is done on a monthly basis as brokers need sometime to collect the data of shares that they have lended to their clients for shorting.



Too much short selling can only drive the stock price down. Short Interest Ratio is very important for short sellers. Short Interest Ratio can give you important clues about other short sellers in the market.



So what is the Short Interest Ratio? Short Interest Ratio is the number of shares of a particular stock that has been shorted in the market. Plus the average daily volume for that stock in the same month and also the number of days of trading at the average volume that it would require the market to cover the short positions in that stock. It also reports the percentage change in the short positions from the previous month.



The problem with Short Interest Ratio is that it is not calculated frequently. It is calculated on monthly basis. So, the trader cannot use it to gauge the short positions in the market on a daily or weekly basis. However, it can give you the general trend in the market. A high short interest ratio should make you nervous if you have taken a short position in that stock as most of the investors who are short will soon become desperate to dump that stock in the market and cover their short positions.

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done masters from Harvard University. Read this 49 page Quantum Swing Trading FREE Report. Turn $200 into $100K in just 3 months with this Penny Stock Trading FREE Report.