QQQ Short Interest

GreenDog,

I was a MM in SPY's on the AMEX some years back and from my experience, even though ETF's are open-ended, they can be hard to borrow in the short run.

ETF's are share's that represent ownership in a Basket of Stocks, like the NASDAQ 100 or S & P 500 index. The shares are held in a depositary trust at a bank . More ETF's can be created by a deposit of a basket of shares at the trust, called a Creation Unit.
Autthorized Participants are institutional investors, Market Maker's or clearing firms that allows the participants to directly transact business with a depositary trust and create more ETF's .
Since someone must be long a ETF for a short seller to borrow the ETF to "Sell Short", there could be times where ETF's are hard to borrow, unless you can create the ETF's yourself and deposit them at the trust institution!

If market players are bearish or MM's have Sold many QQQ's( for example) Short to buyers, then there could be a short sqeeze in QQQ's in the short run(no pun intended!).

For more information on ETF's , you can go to www.amex.com/ .
They have some good information on ETF's.



Gene Weissman
E-Brokerage, LLC
gene@ebrk.com
 
Just a note. While a large Short Interest in ETF's may be a bullish contra-indictor , be aware that a large short positions in ETF's may be arbitrage related. ETF's can be hedged with Futures , Options or offset with other ETF's that have a high correlation .
A Large Short ETF position may be arbitrage related and not a good contra-indicator.



Gene Weissman
E-Brokerage, LLC
gene@ebrk.com
 
Quote from Gene Weissman:

GreenDog,

I was a MM in SPY's on the AMEX some years back and from my experience, even though ETF's are open-ended, they can be hard to borrow in the short run.





Gene Weissman
E-Brokerage, LLC
gene@ebrk.com

Gene, I thought the AMEX listings were controlled by the modified specialist system not MM`s, am I wrong?
 
Thank you for the clarification. I was unaware that MM`s traded on any "real" floor. You learn something new everyday in this business.
 
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