NEW YORK, Jan. 12, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- At the end of the settlement date of December 31, 2008, short interest in 2,559 NASDAQ Global Market(sm) securities totaled 6,757,422,121 shares compared with 7,121,547,015 shares in 2,561 Global Market issues reported for the prior settlement date of December 15, 2008. The end-of-December short interest represents 3.62 days average daily NASDAQ Global Market share volume for the reporting period, compared with 3.43 days for the prior reporting period.
Short interest in 502 securities on The NASDAQ Capital Market(sm) totaled 112,830,725 shares at the end of the settlement date of December 31, 2008, compared with 124,998,737 shares in 497 securities for the previous reporting period. This represents 2.38 days average daily volume, compared with the previous reporting period's figure of 3.49.
In summary, short interest in all 3,061 NASDAQ(r) securities totaled 6,870,252,846 shares at the end of the December 31, 2008 settlement date, compared with 3,058 issues and 7,246,545,752 shares at the end of the previous reporting period. This is 3.59 days average daily volume, compared with an average of 3.43 days for the previous reporting period.
The open short interest positions reported for each NASDAQ security reflect the total number of shares sold short by all broker/dealers regardless of their exchange affiliations. A short sale is generally understood to mean the sale of a security that the seller does not own or any sale that is consummated by the delivery of a security borrowed by or for the account of the seller.
For more information on NASDAQ Short interest positions, including publication dates, visit http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/asp/short_interest.asp.
The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. is the world's largest exchange company. It delivers trading, exchange technology and public company services across six continents, with over 3,900 listed companies. NASDAQ OMX Group offers multiple capital raising solutions to companies around the globe, including its U.S. listings market; NASDAQ OMX Nordic, NASDAQ OMX Baltic, including First North; and the U.S. 144A sector. The company offers trading across multiple asset classes including equities, derivatives, debt, commodities, structured products and ETFs. NASDAQ OMX Group technology supports the operations of over 70 exchanges, clearing organizations and central securities depositories in more than 50 countries. NASDAQ OMX Nordic and NASDAQ OMX Baltic are not legal entities but describe the common offering from NASDAQ OMX Group exchanges in Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Iceland, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius. For more information about NASDAQ OMX, visit http://www.nasdaqomx.com.
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