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I see some articles on occasion that chart the "most shorted stocks" against the index. What are they using for this data? I've not been able to find anything like an ETF or an actual index symbol for such data.
I track 6,000 equities on my custom platform and can track the short interest in each and then come up with my own list, but I feel as though I am missing something and there should be an easier way, like an existing symbol from S&P or Dow Jones, etc.
This chart came from Bloomberg. The graphics look similar to what you posted. They probably came from the same place. It does give a little insight to what it is made up of. I tried looking up the index symbols on the chart but could not find them.
In that example it looks like they're using a short interest ratio( eg total S&P short interest/total S&P volume traded that day, or based on an average over x amount of days)- so the "most shorted" plot is probably based on a basket of stocks with the greatest current short interest/ their total volume traded that day. Or something along those lines.
"Free markets work because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or incentives for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can"
So you think they've manually selected them, that it isn't a ticker somewhere from one of the indicies? I can do that too, I guess I was figuring they had a shortcut.
The scale looks like a typical short interest ratio(days to cover). I doubt there's a standard S&P ticker that represents the "most shorted" stocks based on a ratio( There's ETFs for short interest, I think*) however that example looks more likely to be some custom code generated inside a platform like Bloomberg, that holds all the fundamental stock data. That's my take on it anyway.
"Free markets work because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or incentives for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can"
I would presume that BBG put that together themselves, they do that a lot to try create functions that add value to justify their ridiculous monthly fees, even though most insto dealers just use it for the chat and order flow.
