September 15 settlement shows GME short interest at 39 million shares, 4.3 days to cover

A new batch of FINRA short interest data landed Tuesday. The file for the settlement date of September 15 covers 22,595 symbols and shows a sharp contraction in trades betting against GameStop. The GME short interest is now 39,069,126 shares, down 31.45% from the prior filing. Its days-to-cover ratio, a measure of short-selling pressure, stands at 4.29. This data is sourced from the FINRA Short Interest feed and is available for analysis via the Short Interest Tracker and its API.

Settlement Day Ledger

The latest snapshot shows a significant decline in the GME short book. Compared to the prior settlement, the total position dropped from 56,990,026 to 39,069,126 shares. That's a change of nearly 17.9 million shares. It's a notable move not just for its size, but for the resulting shift in the days-to-cover metric. That ratio fell from 9.72 to 4.29. The lower figure reflects a higher volume of shares trading recently.

The GME Regime Over Twelve Files

The latest drop fits within a longer trend. Viewed across the last twelve settlements, the GME short quantity has fallen on net. It started at 62,823,134 shares on March 31 and has been whittled down to the current 39,069,126. That's a net reduction of over 23 million shares.

A XOOMAR reading of the direction of change shows this wasn't a straight line down, however. Out of the eleven file-to-file changes in this window, eight were declines and three were increases. The short book grew on May 29 (up 1.72%), again on August 14 (up 0.56%), and most recently on August 31 (up 5.47%). The drop reported Tuesday is the largest single file-over-file decline observed in this period.

The Days-to-Cover Pressure Gauge

While the GME short interest quantity has been the primary mover, the days-to-cover (DTC) ratio tells a story of fluctuating liquidity. The ratio is short quantity divided by average daily volume. A high DTC can signal a short book that could take many trading sessions to theoretically close, though it is not a calendar forecast of a squeeze date.

GME's DTC has been volatile. It hit a low of 4.16 on May 15, coinciding with a huge average daily volume of 13,910,930 shares. It then spiked to its peak for this window, 17.06, on July 31 as volume dried up to just over 3 million shares a day. The latest reading of 4.29 sits near the low for the period, driven by the combination of a much smaller short book and robust volume of 9,105,968 shares.

Who Else Walks a High Tightrope

Beyond GME, the file highlights other symbols carrying substantial days-to-cover burdens. The highest among liquid names is AMXOF, with a DTC of 137.55. Its short book of 151,931,827 shares towers over its average daily volume of 1,104,524. It's crucial to note that many of the names with extreme DTC figures are foreign or over-the-counter tickers, where lower liquidity can inflate the ratio. A high print doesn't inherently signal a squeeze setup, it simply measures the relationship between bets and recent trading activity.

Table of the Top Ten Liquid DTCs

Here are the ten names with the highest days-to-cover ratios from the latest file.

Accelerating Short Bets

While GME saw a major unwind, other liquid names saw aggressive new shorting. The table of the largest short-quantity increases shows bets ramping up by several hundred percent in a single filing period. All figures are the change from the prior FINRA file.

• SNK: +431.69% to 1,582,893 shares
• FLTR: +418.55% to 3,341,471 shares
• IDEV: +416.91% to 2,812,162 shares
• UUP: +414.90% to 7,456,289 shares
• DIHP: +413.42% to 1,354,645 shares
• APPX: +387.60% to 1,828,299 shares

Notably, despite these enormous percentage increases, the resulting days-to-cover figures for many of these names remain low. SNK, AIM, and IXUS all show a DTC of exactly 1.00. This indicates the new short interest is matched by substantial average volume. It also underscores that a large percentage change can stem from a very small prior base.

The File's Scope and Limits

This data provides a bi-monthly census of short positions but comes with clear boundaries. The share price on the settlement date is unknown, so the dollar value of the GME short interest or any other position can't be calculated from this file alone. It also contains no data on borrow fees, stock loan utilization, or locate availability. These are critical to the actual cost and feasibility of maintaining a short bet. While a high days-to-cover figure is a pressure gauge, the file does not label any name as a squeeze candidate. The next settlement file date isn't within the current data window.