GameStop's short interest climbed in the latest bi-weekly settlement file. Shorts held 56.99 million shares on the Monday, August 31, filing date, up from 54.04 million in the mid-August file. That's a 5.47% expansion, according to FINRA data. The move reversed the prior period's modest 0.56% increase. Meanwhile, the average daily volume used to calculate the days-to-cover metric fell by more than 40%, pushing that ratio up to 9.72 from 5.31. This marks a continued plateau in GME short interest after the bulk of covering ran its course earlier in the year.
XOOMAR Pulse Intelligence
FINRA Consolidated Short Interest & DTC
Explore the data yourself on the Short Interest Tracker.
The Latest File's Tally
The FINRA file records short interest for 22,569 symbols. It's a snapshot of positions as of a settlement date, in this case August 31. The GME short quantity of 56,990,026 shares was 5.47% higher than the 54,036,583 shares reported for August 14.
The 5.47% increase came on lower average daily volume. The ADV used for the days-to-cover calculation fell from 10,171,317 shares to 5,864,237. That drop in the denominator, more than the increase in the numerator, drove the days-to-cover ratio from 5.31 up to 9.72. The ratio measures how many trading days, at recent volume levels, it would take to repurchase all reported short shares. It's a factor of both short bets and stock turnover.
GameStop's Short-Cover Trade
The series of a dozen settlements shows the overall trend. The headline is net contraction. The short book peaked in this window at 64,227,044 shares on the March 13 file. From that oldest reading to the latest August 31 reading, it's down by just over 7 million shares to 56,990,026.
That's not a straight line. XOOMAR reads the direction as eight declines and three increases within the twelve-file series. The three files that reversed the prevailing downtrend landed on May 29 (up 1.72%), August 14 (up 0.56%), and August 31 (up 5.47%). The net effect is a smaller, but less volatile, GME short interest. The large May 29 rebound to 58.9 million shares followed a surge in days-to-cover from the prior file, a pattern repeated in the latest data.
| Settlement date | Short quantity | Avg daily volume | Days to cover | Change vs prior file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-13 | 64,227,044 | 5,246,169 | 12.24 | -2.12% |
| 2026-03-31 | 62,823,134 | 6,066,043 | 10.36 | -2.19% |
| 2026-04-15 | 61,907,606 | 6,610,420 | 9.37 | -1.46% |
| 2026-04-30 | 59,374,474 | 7,005,031 | 8.48 | -4.09% |
| 2026-05-15 | 57,937,281 | 13,910,930 | 4.16 | -2.42% |
| 2026-05-29 | 58,930,916 | 4,914,100 | 11.99 | 1.72% |
| 2026-06-15 | 57,054,439 | 6,841,859 | 8.34 | -3.18% |
| 2026-06-30 | 55,856,110 | 5,196,127 | 10.75 | -2.10% |
| 2026-07-15 | 55,426,276 | 3,433,961 | 16.14 | -0.77% |
| 2026-07-31 | 53,736,062 | 3,150,012 | 17.06 | -3.05% |
| 2026-08-14 | 54,036,583 | 10,171,317 | 5.31 | 0.56% |
| 2026-08-31 | 56,990,026 | 5,864,237 | 9.72 | 5.47% |
| GME short interest, last 12 settlements. Days to cover = short quantity / average daily volume. |
Amplifying Factors for GME
The days-to-cover metric's recent behavior is a story about volume. The highest print in the series was 17.06 days on July 31. That wasn't because shorts hit a new peak. The short quantity that day was the window's second-lowest at 53.74 million. It was because average daily volume cratered to 3.15 million shares.
The subsequent mid-August file saw a tidal wave of volume, over 10 million shares per day on average. That collapsed the days-to-cover ratio to 5.31 despite a slight rise in the short count. The latest file's bounce back to 9.72 days simply mirrors the cooling of that volume spike. The short book grew, but the days-to-cover climbed more sharply because volume normalized downward. This pattern shows why reading the metric requires looking at both parts of the fraction.
Where the Shortest Cover Is
The days-to-cover leaderboard for liquid names highlights a type of trade beyond the main stage. To qualify, a stock needs average daily volume over 200,000. The list is dominated by foreign and OTC symbols, and high ratios often reflect lower liquidity in the denominator rather than epic short bets.
Topping the list is NPPXF at 999.99 days. Other notable names include CXMSF at 212.22 days and IVPAF at 178.14 days. These prints are for analysis, not predictive of a certain outcome. The data does not include borrow rates or locate difficulty, which are key inputs for any actual cover scenario.
| Symbol | Short quantity | Avg daily volume | Days to cover | Change vs prior file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NPPXF | 223,939,791 | 209,417 | 999.99 | 6.49% |
| CXMSF | 55,051,179 | 259,410 | 212.22 | 13.02% |
| IVPAF | 111,459,332 | 625,691 | 178.14 | -2.13% |
| LUNMF | 15,599,149 | 202,801 | 76.92 | 3.90% |
| IPSC | 29,528,941 | 418,031 | 70.64 | 0.54% |
| WCPRF | 31,520,918 | 501,920 | 62.80 | 7.21% |
| CSCCF | 17,431,765 | 291,757 | 59.75 | 0.08% |
| GSCCF | 15,144,488 | 256,353 | 59.08 | -0.12% |
| BIREF | 11,511,326 | 204,102 | 56.40 | 8.86% |
| GLATF | 25,954,529 | 493,593 | 52.58 | -6.80% |
| Highest days to cover (ADV over 200,000). Same liquidity floor as the XOOMAR short-interest hub. Illiquid 999.99 prints are excluded. |
Shorts Expanding the Book
Beyond GME, some liquid names saw their short books balloon in the latest filing. The largest increases list filters for ADV over 500,000 and short quantity over a million, capping the change percentage to exclude broken OTC prints. The top jumps are extreme on a percentage basis, moving from a low base to a round 1.0 days-to-cover.
- LGCL: +491.64% to 1,719,365 shares.
- CHAI: +459.40% to 3,474,071 shares.
- DBA: +449.20% to 1,247,747 shares.
- REEMF: +413.66% to 1,886,779 shares.
These stocks, including JPST (+307.49%) and VIVK (+272.46%), saw their short positions multiply. With days-to-cover mostly at 1.00, the moves represent a fresh, aggressive short bet on a handful of very liquid names.
How XOOMAR Reads the Tapes
XOOMAR stores the FINRA consolidated short interest file. Days-to-cover is calculated as the reported short quantity divided by the average daily volume covering the settlement period. This creates a ratio, not a calendar forecast of when any covering may happen.
The hub applies liquidity floors for context. The highest days-to-cover list requires average daily volume above 200,000. The largest increases list has a higher bar: ADV over 500,000 and short quantity over 1,000,000, with a change cap to filter out spurious OTC moves. These filters help separate the widening of a short book from a technical artifact of a low-volume stock.
A Trend's False Signatures
A rising days-to-cover ratio doesn't automatically mean the short book is ballooning. As the GME series shows, it can just as easily signal a drop in average trading volume. Conversely, a falling ratio might just mean a volume spike. The key is to separate the behavior of the short position from the behavior of the stock itself. The August 31 file gave an example of both factors moving together: the GME short book grew and volume fell, amplifying the days-to-cover rebound to 9.72. For shorts, it's one more piece of friction against an easy exit, provided recent volume patterns hold.
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Written by
XOOMAR
Data desk
XOOMAR is a capital markets software and data company in Selden, New York. Every brief on this site starts from a dataset the company collects itself from primary sources (CFTC, SEC EDGAR, FINRA, the Federal Reserve, exchange APIs) and names the numbers it is built on, with a link to the data page so you can check them. Briefs are reviewed before they go out and corrected in place when the data is revised.
