FINRA and SEC on Short Sales and REG SHO The best place to start for information on the daily and monthly short sales reporting from FINRA and why it's published is this webpage at FINRA: http://www.finra.org/Industry/Compliance/MarketTransparency/ADF/RegulationSHO/ This is the published notice from back in September (PDF): http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@reg/@notice/documents/notices/p120044.pdf A press release by SEC that's referenced in that document is here: http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-172.htm Note the intent is to "protect against abusive short sales and make more short sale information available to the public". Reading that PR provides some very important background and information (IMO).