NEW YORK, Oct. 24, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- At the end of the settlement date of October 15, 2008, short interest in 2,609 NASDAQ Global Market(sm) securities totaled 7,959,011,057 shares compared with 8,884,212,187 shares in 2,620 Global Market issues reported for the prior settlement date of September 30, 2008. The mid-October short interest represents 3.43 days average daily NASDAQ Global Market share volume for the reporting period, compared with 3.23 days for the prior reporting period.
Short interest in 530 securities on The NASDAQ Capital Market(sm) totaled 154,938,214 shares at the end of the settlement date of October 15, 2008, compared with 178,017,678 shares in 533 securities for the previous reporting period. This represents 3.90 days average daily volume, compared with the previous reporting period's figure of 4.27.
In summary, short interest in all 3,139 NASDAQ OMX securities totaled 8,113,949,271 shares at the end of the October 15, 2008 settlement date, compared with 3,153 issues and 9,062,229,865 shares at the end of the previous reporting period. This is 3.43 days average daily volume, compared with an average of 3.24 days for the previous reporting period.
The open short interest positions reported for each NASDAQ OMX security reflect the total number of shares sold short by all broker/dealers regardless of their exchange affiliations. A short sale is generally understood to mean the sale of a security that the seller does not own or any sale that is consummated by the delivery of a security borrowed by or for the account of the seller.
For more information on NASDAQ Short interest positions, including publication dates, visit http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/asp/short_interest.asp.
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