Is there a way to tell how many stocks have been shorted?

Question

When investigating a particular stock it is nice to know how many stocks have been shorted.

Is there a way of finding out how many stocks have been shorted (for a given stock)?

Answer 1

Generally the number of shares of a U.S. exchange-listed stock which have been shorted are tracked by the exchange and reported monthly. This number is usually known as the open short interest. You may also see a short interest ratio, which is the short interest divided by the average daily volume for the stock.

The short interest is available on some general stock data sites, such as Yahoo Finance (under Key Statistics) and dailyfinance.com (also on a Key Statistics subpage for the stock).