Short interest is reported on a schedule tied to settlement dates. That means the latest short-interest number is a reported snapshot, not a live count of short selling activity today.
Each report shows how many shares were sold short and remained open as of that settlement date. The data is useful because it creates a consistent historical series, but it should not be read as real-time positioning.
A stock can move sharply between the settlement date and the time investors review the data. Volume, news, earnings, borrow costs, and market conditions may have changed. For that reason, the report date should always be read alongside the historical trend.
Use reporting dates to compare one settlement period with the next. The most useful questions are whether short interest rose or fell, whether days to cover changed, and whether the latest reading is high or low compared with the same stock’s own history.