Quantisnow data
Quantisnow Short Volume Ratio
Market-wide FINRA short sale volume as a share of total volume, by month, with the most heavily shorted liquid stocks and the count of stocks above 50% short volume.
Last updated . Recomputed daily.
In September 2026, short sales made up 51.0% of FINRA-reported volume across US stocks (August: 50.2%), and 2,663 liquid stocks had a monthly short volume ratio above 50%.
September 2026 at a glance
- Market short volume ratio
- 51.0%
- Prior month: 50.2%
- Highest daily ratio
- 53.2%
- Prior month: 51.7%
- Lowest daily ratio
- 49.1%
- Prior month: 48.9%
- Liquid stocks above 50%
- 2,663
- Prior month: 2,505
- Liquid stocks measured
- 4,385
- Prior month: 4,431
- Trading days
- 21
- Prior month: 21
Highest short volume ratios (5M+ shares of monthly volume), September 2026
Monthly history
Each month links to its own archive page with the full breakdown.
| Month | Market short volume ratio | Highest daily ratio | Lowest daily ratio | Liquid stocks above 50% | Liquid stocks measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2026to date | 50.4% | 52.4% | 47.5% | 2,452 | 4,273 |
| September 2026 | 51.0% | 53.2% | 49.1% | 2,663 | 4,385 |
| August 2026 | 50.2% | 51.7% | 48.9% | 2,505 | 4,431 |
| July 2026 | 49.6% | 51.6% | 46.9% | 2,504 | 4,432 |
| June 2026 | 47.7% | 50.5% | 46.4% | 2,219 | 4,585 |
| May 2026 | 47.7% | 49.8% | 45.4% | 2,187 | 4,495 |
Methodology
FINRA publishes daily short sale volume for every security reported to its consolidated trade reporting facilities. Quantisnow ingests the file every trading day. The short volume ratio is short sale volume divided by total reported volume.
FINRA short sale volume is not short interest: market makers report many short sales while providing liquidity, so ratios around 40 to 50% are normal. The series is useful for relative comparisons across time and between stocks, not as a measure of bearish positioning on its own.
Monthly stock ratios are volume-weighted (sum of short volume over sum of total volume for the month). The ranking excludes stocks with under 5 million shares of reported monthly volume to avoid thinly traded names.
Figures are recomputed daily from the Quantisnow event database. The current month is marked as month to date until it closes; closed months are recomputed for a few days after month end to pick up late filings, then stay fixed.
Definitions for every column are in the JSON download.
Metric definitions
- Market short volume ratio
- (
ratio): Sum of FINRA short sale volume divided by sum of total reported volume, all covered stocks. - Highest daily ratio
- (
highDay) - Lowest daily ratio
- (
lowDay) - Liquid stocks above 50%
- (
above50): Stocks with 1M+ shares of monthly reported volume whose monthly short ratio exceeded 50%. - Liquid stocks measured
- (
liquid) - Trading days
- (
days)
Download and cite
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to Quantisnow and a link to this page.
Quantisnow. (2026). Quantisnow Short Volume Ratio [Data set]. Retrieved October 28, 2026, from https://www.quantisnow.com/data/short-volume
<figure style="margin:0;max-width:720px"><a href="https://www.quantisnow.com/data/short-volume"><img src="https://www.quantisnow.com/data/short-volume.svg" alt="Quantisnow Short Volume Ratio chart" width="720" height="340" style="width:100%;height:auto" loading="lazy"></a><figcaption style="font:12px sans-serif;color:#5b6470">Source: <a href="https://www.quantisnow.com/data/short-volume">Quantisnow Short Volume Ratio</a> by Quantisnow</figcaption></figure>