The total number of shares that have been shorted in a particular stock but have not yet been closed out, or bought back. High short interest means many investors have bet that a stock will fall. Short interest is expressed as either a raw number of shares or as a percentage of total shares outstanding.
A company has 1 million shares outstanding. If 150,000 shares have been shorted and not yet bought back, the short interest is 150,000 shares, or 15 percent of outstanding shares.
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