What is going on moon gang? I wanted to take this opportunity to provide some clarification on some very important terminology. I'm hoping to clear up any confusion related to terms such as short interest shares on loan costs to borrow utilization and days to cover, because these are very important words and i think it'll just help some of our discussion. So to kick this off just you know throughout the video i'll be referencing three stocks just so you can see some similarities and differences throughout them. So to start this all off you need to know we got to start with the term outstanding shares so right here.

I have ortex just so you know there is a link to ortex in the description of this video. I find it to be a very useful piece of software, so anyway, outstanding shares for amc right now is 450 million. Outstanding shares is basically defined as all shares. In existence in reference to that, gamestop has 74 million, and apple has 16.69 billion.

As you can see, different stocks have different amounts of outstanding shares. Aka shares in existence from there we need to talk about free flow. Free flow is a portion of outstanding shares, so outstanding shares equals free float plus. The common term that i hear is closely held shares, so closely held plus free float, equals all shares in existence.

This is already right away, throwing a kind of a wrench into it, because on different platforms, they calculate the free flow differently and it's basically a different definition of what is closely held. So a lot of these look at insiders who we know can't, sell and then there's more of the gray area of like well, i i don't think that this pension fund will sell, while this one other platform thinks that that pensions fund could sell their shares. So there is a little bit of gray area, there's no like perfect rule and that's why you're gon na see a bit of difference between different platforms, but in the end, the way i like to think about it is free float is basically the shares that you And i can trade, it's the amount of shares that the public has access to and the other part of that is closely held and they're the ones that most likely really won't, be traded or could be held by insiders like that um. So the free float for amc is 92.78.

If you do the math out on that, it's just below 418 million shares. If we take a peek at gamestop, their free flow is 66.71, so that comes out to 49.5 million shares. And then, if we do the same thing with apple, their free flow is 99.9. So that's pretty much 16.68 billion shares somewhere and along those lines.

So basically outstanding shares is all the shares and then free float closely held you and i trade the free flow. I just need to set that up, because this is terminology that i'm going to use to explain more of the important terminology so before we get into these important ones. You have to know that most people, when you buy a stock, to open a position you buy stock, it's considered to be going long and then from there you buy at point a you hope. It goes up to point b and to close the position you would sell and you would profit that difference between a and b that when you buy and then sell you're long, the opposite is going short.

You create the position by selling stock. You hope it declines from a down to b. You would profit that just that difference, and then you would close that position by buying back to the market going long and going short, are the exact opposites of each other. So this brings us into the short interest short interest is the amount of shares that are short like shares bet against a company? Basically, they were created by selling into the market and they're looking to buy back when the stock goes lower.

It's that percentage divided either by the free float or the outstanding shares i've seen it both. I would argue that it's more common to divide all the total shares short by the free float, but i have seen it both ways and that's how you get the estimated short interest. Um estimated is a very, very important clarifying word here, because, with that, the way our system works right now we do have some of these exchange reported short interests, but, as you can see, when it's released, the most recent one for amc was on the 26th. But it's from data on the 15th so like it's already naturally lagging like there's no perfect way for many many reasons to get like an up-to-date, perfect short interest number.

So that's why something like ortex is doing an estimation and the way they pull off. This estimation is something that's highly correlated to short shares, but not the exact same, and that comes to shares on loan. Remember when i was saying to go long, you buy the stock. Then you sell it well to to go short.

You first have to sell it. So how can you sell something that you don't own well, this is where shares on loan enters to sell something you don't own. You have to borrow it from someone, hence you're taking it on loan, so shares on loan and short shares are highly correlated, but not the exact same once again highly correlated, but not the exact same. So basically, someone be like hey i'm willing to loan mine out that other person would actually borrow it from them for a fee, and then they have the option to take that block that they just borrowed.

They can short it. They can hold it and eventually, depending on how it all plays out. Eventually, they would have to return that to the original owner. This facilitation is kind of done by your broker.

If you're a hedge fund like hedge fund, a lending to be it's all done through then what's called a prime broker just to get some more terminology out there. So, for example, amc right now. The shares on loan is estimated. Let's just call it 150 million shares, which is pretty considerable because remember that the free float for amc is 418 million shares.

Just to give you kind of that estimation and then something like ortex what they do is they basically see how things are kind of trending? On, like all the previous exchange report, um short interest numbers, they have their own model to see like kind of their estimation of okay. If x amount is on loan, we assume, like a certain percentage y percentage of that x amount will actually be short into the market. They have their own fancy model. That does that in the back end, and then with that number.

That's how you're coming up with shares on loan running right into your estimated short interest, and so one question that i get at this point is well if the. If someone, if a person or hedge fund owns a stock, why would they possibly lend it out to someone that is probably going to bet against them, because if you own a stock, obviously you want it to go up, so why would they loan it out to Someone when they know that they can actually be hurting their inherent position by betting against them. That's a very good question and it comes into the fact that it's just like another way to profit on wall street. Basically, you get paid to lend out your shares um.

If you're using something like robin hood or weibo that brokerage, if you own the stock weeble and robin hood, that's how they make some money, they're loaning it out, and then these other hedge funds they just call up their prime broker and they're like hey. We know we're not going to sell these shares for quite a while feel free to lend them out and we'll take some interest um. It is a good way to generate some extra revenue, especially if you're not planning on selling. So it's just another way to make money and um for stocks that are considered hard to borrow such as amc.

You can get a good amount right here. Um, the fourth one down cost to borrow average, is 19 19.18 uh keep in mind. This is on a yearly basis, you're not paying in 19 fee per day. It is per year, but it does add up for each day that they swing it um.

This is a very, very hard one, because amc is considered hard to borrow, for example, if we take a look at gamestops, their cost to borrow fee as of thursday april 29th is 1.73, and even that's kind of considered to be high. If we take a look at april on the same day or apple on the same day on april 29th, that cost to borrow is 0.34, i'm just bringing this up, so you can see the fact that yes, amc at this moment in time as i'm filming. This is very, very high relative to many other stocks in the stock market. Why is it so much harder? Basically, it's just the fee goes up.

The cost to borrow fee goes up the harder it is for brokers and prime brokers to locate shares for you to borrow so then they can short. So it's really it's hard to borrow it's just kind of classic supply and demand if the supply of ones that are willing to be lent out is very low, but the demand tie. Obviously the cost goes up. So that's just kind of like the basic ratio for that, so we've gone over short interest shares on loan.

The next very, very important one after your cost to borrow is utilization. This is a percentage and it's basically out of all the shares that are willing to be lent out, which is a dynamic number like say one day, all these hedge funds um are willing to lend out a hundred million of whatever stock, and then maybe a couple Days later it goes up to 150 million. Well utilization is the ratio of how many of those are actually on them. So, let's say in a scenario where, let's just take that scenario where there is a 100 million shares that are being lent out and all of them are officially on loan utilization would be 100 and in fact that's what amc is at right now, let's say the Next day, a big hedge fund comes in that owns 50 million shares of that stock.

They could call up a brown broker and be like hey, i'm willing to lend mine too. So all of a sudden, the base number your denominator goes up to 150 million and let's say no one accepts those to go on loan. Well at that point, then, you have 100 million by 150. So now your utilization is 66.6, but it can also like if more people decide to actually take those on loan, then it can run back up if all if those extra 50 million go on loan, your utilization is back up to 100.

So i just want to clarify that the numerator and denominator for utilization is very, very dynamic. It depends on what's going on in the market that day, but basically it's how many shares are on loan divided by how many shares are willing to be lent out at that moment in time. Um this, i would in no way say one number - is more important than the other. You need to know the short interest, the shares on loan and utilization.

They are all three pieces to an overall puzzle. Um, just knowing one of them doesn't give you much information. You have to know all three because of like the math i just explained one of them just doesn't give you that full picture. You need all three to see kind of.

What's going on to see the important trends. The other thing i wanted to bring up right now is actually days to cover it's this one's very, very important, and i just don't see it talked about that much and i just want to clarify what it is so days to cover right now on. Amc is 3.57. What is days to cover well basically you're.

Looking it's an estimation of how many shares are short against the company um. Let's go just back to an example: let's say that there is 50 shares short against the company, and the average volume traded per day on that company is only 10 shares. So that means that, even if all these shorts wanted to get out on average, there's just not enough volume for them to get out in one day. So in this scenario, if there's 50 - and it's only trading 10 per day, it would actually take five days for them to get out.

The issue in this situation is not really the top number it's more of the bottom number of like. Well, how do you know the volume per day per stock per day? It's always changing and that's a very, very fair question. So this is where it comes, in average volume most of the time when you're looking at days to cover they're using the average volume over the past three months, but in situations when you're really really looking at, like the possibility of a short squeeze. That's why it's important to potentially lower your time frame, because in situations where there is a short squeeze, it's very very common to see the volume spike, so the the average volume over the three months isn't really a fair indicator.

It's almost underestimating what it is. So that's why platforms like ortex are starting to use two weeks instead, because it gives you a smaller time frame and it's like more accurate about like what's going on in, like very recent history. So i personally and strongly believe that whenever you're considering a short squeeze, you want the smallest time frame possible when you're, really looking at the average volume. To give you a better indication of how long it would take all the short sellers to cover all their positions.

To get out of that overall short position right now for amc just so you know i want to go through these comparisons. The estimated short interest is 23.23. The on loan is 150 million shares. The days to cover is 3.57 and the cost to borrow is 19.18.

Just for a point of reference relative to gamestop, which is still considered to be kind of a highly shorted company, the estimated short interest is 23.32. The days to cover is 2.51 days. The shares on loan is 14.4 million, and the cost to borrow is 1.73 and then honestly, even i'll just show you apple's numbers right here. All these are even lower, and this is more like amc's numbers are pretty high, so are gamestops and then apple, which is considered to be like not really a shorted stock, more of a normal stock.

As you can see from all these numbers, they are considerably lower. So now that we have like kind of a better understanding of how all these numbers are interplaying with each other, i think it's a very fair question of, like we've all seen these headlines and comments from other people of like how is it possible that the short Interest can go above 100. Ownership can go above 100. How can you own and short more than like there is in existence of a thing - and this is more of like how the mechanics of a the stock market and a single stock work so for this example.

Let's just say that we have a a really awesome company that ships apes from earth to the moon and, let's say it trades under the ticker m-m-o-o-n, we'll just call it moon. So let's say that moon just for the ease of math has a hundred million shares in existence. Right and let's say i own all 100 million and i'm i'm so confident in it and i think it's going to go up. But in the meantime i want to earn more money, so i'm going to i'm willing to lend it out.

So i can earn that interest on cost of borrow. Let's say i lend all of those out right, so they go out and let's say someone that doesn't want apes to go to the moon, decides to short all of them. With this short, they would borrow it from me. I own 100 million um.

So i have 100 ownership. I lend them out to someone else they to create the position borrowed it from me and you have to sell to the market, as in someone has to be borrowing from you. So that means that someone else now owns a hundred million shares so right there, the ownership - i still own mine, someone borrowed it from me. They sold it to someone else so that hundred million chunk went from me owning to lending it out to someone else and now there's a new owner so right there, the ownership has jumped up to 200 or one over 100, because we just it's basically a big Game of recycling so right there, the short interest is now 100 and the ownership has somehow gone up to 200 percent, and now this other party they can then loan their shares out and basically it's just sit the situation of where you're just daisy chaining ownership.

You could buy lenders out, they short they sell to someone else that new owner then lends theirs out and then there's a new short and that's how you can daisy chain and that's basically just how ownership of a of an overall company and then also short interest. Can easily go above 100, it's just basically you're buying lending shorting, buying lending shorting and that just process, washroom's repeat and that's kind of like the mathematical trick of like i mean i know, the big thing with gamestop is how, like the short interest, was above 140 And that's exactly how you did it: it's just the daisy training of like the ownership and the promise of ownership. I hope that clarifies one thing and the one thing of really an extra little bonus thing just for the end here, um a data point that i really really don't like. I just brought up amc's here, but you could check out this data really on any stock.

So, as of friday april uh 30th right here, the market volume for amc was 27.7 million shares were traded out of those 27 million. This short volume was 6.1 million. Let's just call it 6 million um the magnitude of this number. This data point, i would argue, has no utility whatsoever.

Why does it have no utility honestly? It does deserve its own video to explain why. But to give you the highlight to that out of this 6 million, we have no clue what percentage of the 6 million is legitimate, shorts, that plan on shorting the um their position and swinging it overnight versus high frequency traders that are just providing liquidity to the Market, these high frequency traders they're really not bullish or bearish, like i said, they're just providing liquidity and there's no way to know what percentage of this is hfts versus legitimate shorts. So, like i said i wouldn't use like to me. The magnitude of this number doesn't mean anything, but the one way i would use it is assuming that that proportion, the unknown proportion is held constant.

I like to look at the trend so, for example, in amc on the 27th through the 28th and the 29th to the 30th, the short volume ratio went from 18.9 percent to 20.3 percent up to 22.3. So, like i said, assuming that that that ratio between out of whatever makes up that 100 x ratio between high frequency traders and legitimate shorts, assuming it's always kind of the same, i could. I would logically think that, oh, that means that the legitimate shorts are actually increasing over this four-day span because we went from 18.9 up to 22.3. So my point is: is i never liked the magnitude of it, but i like to look at how it's trending, whether up down or neutral, i think that's one way that you could viably use that piece of data.

So with all that being said, my obviously my efforts with this are just to kind of clear up. Some of those important terms outstanding shares, free float versus closely held, and then we talked about short interest shares on loan costs to borrow utilization and finally, the days to cover metric. I hope that clears up any of the confusion for you um just so we can have more of like a we're on the same page when we're discussing these same things, but until i catch you next time best of luck in the markets. You.