New York, NY—As of mid-November, short interest in 2,759 NASDAQ National Market® securities totaled 4,390,393,621 shares compared with 4,429,621,493 shares in 2,765 National Market issues for the month of October.

The November short interest represents 2.52 days’ average daily NASDAQ National Market share volume for the reporting period, compared with 2.63 days in October.  Short interest in 697 securities on The NASDAQ SmallCap MarketSM totaled 172,729,412 shares for November, compared with 154,486,171 shares in 709 securities for the month of October. This represents 1.11 days average daily volume, compared with last month’s figure of 0.81 days.

In summary, short interest in all 3,456 NASDAQ® securities totaled 4,563,123,033 shares for November, compared with 3,474 issues and 4,584,107,664 shares in October. This is 2.40 days’ average daily volume, compared with last month’s average of 2.44 days.

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.
 The monthly NASDAQ short interest figures are current as of the 15th of the month and are released to the media after the market close on the seventh business day following that date.  The figures this month include all short-interest positions reported October 16 through November 10 and settled as of November 14, 2003.

The total NASDAQ short positions for the preceding 13 months and current month follow:

For more information on NASDAQ Short-Interest positions, visit the  www.nasdaqtrader.com Web site