This is a simple indicator that is designed to provide you with a synopsis of short interest on the daily, weekly and monthly timeframes.
How it works:
It pulls FINRA ticker data on short volume for whichever ticker you are on. It works with all tickers provided they are listed on FINRA (which is all tickers).
It will not work with futures, for futures, you would want to use a COT-based indicator, but for indices and equities, this indicator will provide you with the short volume information.
What it shows:
It breaks short volume down into current short volume, the 14-period SMA of short volume over the day, week and month, it also provides you with a short volume to SMA ratio. This is Short Volume divided by the SMA. Anything below 1 is good, it means short interest is low. Anything above 1 is not good, it means that short volume is above the SMA.
It also will show you the weekly, daily and monthly short volume change.
And last but not least, it will tell you whether short interest is falling, rising or steady. How it does this is by tracking whether the SMA is increasing, decreasing or stagnant.
Customization:
You can customize the SMA length and the assessment of whether short volume is increasing or decreasing. The default SMA length is 14 and the default assessment of rising/falling short volume is 4. This means, short volume has to rise or fall over a 4-period timeframe for it to register. So on the week, if it displays short volume increasing, it means that, over the past 4 weeks, the sma has steadily risen. Inverse if it decreases. If you want it to be more sensitive, you can reduce it to 2 or 3. If you want it to be more strict, you can increase it to 5 or 6.
NOTE:
If the volume information for a ticker is not available, it will return a runtime error indicating as such.
And that's the indicator!
I wanted something similar to COT data for equities and indices, so this was my attempt to bridge that gap.
Hope you enjoy and find it useful! Leave your suggestions below.
Take care everyone!