According to the following news release Nextel's short interest went up another 25,000 shares.
(UPDATE) Short Interest In Nasdaq Issues Rose 2.6% In Month, Sets Record
Dow Jones Online News, Thursday, February 26, 1998 at 03:53
By Deborah Lohse, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
NEW YORK -- Short interest rose 2.6% in the latest month on the
Nasdaq Stock Market to a record.
The total, which includes Nasdaq small-capitalization and
large-capitalization stocks, rose to 1,820,425,083 shares on Feb. 13
from 1,774,110,126 shares in mid-January, according to Nasdaq.
On the Nasdaq SmallCap Market, which is made up of the 1,357
smaller-cap stocks, short interest fell 1.2%. It rose 2.7% for the 4,126
larger-cap stocks on the Nasdaq National Market.
Traders who sell securities "short" borrow shares and then sell them,
betting they can profit by buying the stock back later at lower prices.
Short interest is the number of shares that haven't been repurchased for
return to lenders. As such, it is often taken as an indicator of the
degree of negative sentiment among investors in the stocks. Investors
may rely on short selling for other purposes, including as a hedging
strategy related to corporate mergers and acquisitions, for convertible
securities and options, and for tax purposes.
The Nasdaq National Market's short-interest ratio fell to 2.63 days
from 2.84 days in the previous month. The short-interest ratio for the
smaller stocks rose to 0.82 from 0.78. The ratio is the number of
trading days that would be required to close out the short positions
through share purchases and is considered a measure of trading
sentiment.
The following companies had the largest decreases in short interest:
Apple Computer Inc., down 7,401,210 shares to 12,030,788 shares; Ascend
Communications Inc., down 4,841,510 shares to 8,263,151, and ICG
Communication Inc., down 3,865,284 shares to 2,453,196.
These companies had the largest increases in short interest: Intel
Corp., up 10,543,415 to 46,044,805; WorldCom Inc., up 7,167,908 to
71,140,534, and Oracle Corp., up 5,887,659 to 20,629,680.
Among companies with the largest short-interest positions:
Tele-Communications Inc., Series A Tci Group, was down 991,446 to
28,793,961; Nextel Communications Inc. was up 25,736 to 22,402,089;
Microsoft Corp. was up 4,298,238 to 21,344,609; and Dell Computer Corp.
was down 1,439,213 to 21,178,604.
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