Where can I find information on the percentage of volume is contributed by shorts?
I believe that it's not possible for the public to know what shares are being exchanged as shorts because broker-dealers (not the exchanges) handle the shorting arrangements.  I don't think exchanges can even tell the difference between a person selling a share that belongs to her vs. a share that she's just borrowing.  (There are SEC regulations requiring some traders to declare that trades are shorts, but (a) I don't think this applies to all traders, (b) it only applies to the sells, and (c) this information isn't public.) That being said, you can view the short interest in a symbol using any of a number of tools, such as Nasdaq's here.  This is often cited as an indicator similar to what you proposed, though I don't know how helpful it would be from an intra-day perspective. "You can do a lot of deduction FINRA keeps a ""REG-SHO"" list created daily that tells what the daily short volume is. March 26th 2014's list: http://regsho.finra.org/FNSQshvol20140326.txt If you are talking about the United States, this answer may be better ;)"
"Is there any particular area of business that you have interest?    What free resources do you currently use (general web browsing)?  Here are some magazines out there that I find interesting:  * **Fast Company** - $12.99 / Year / 10 Issues - Magazine focused on tech, innovation, leadership and design.  I don't subscribe, but I regularly purchase Fast Company, Entrepreneur,and Inc. when I am traveling.  They make for a perfect airplane read and I typically find great takeaways or clip articles from it.  * **Entrepreneur** - $11.97 / Year / 12 Issues - Obviously by the title this is catered to the entrepreneurial mindset.  It provides informational and inspirational stories from entrepreneurs and for entrepreneurs.  I enjoy reading this and probably read 3 or 4 issues per year.  I'm not a regular reader, but at times I have felt like content may run lean at times.    * **Inc** - $12.99 / Year / 10 Issues - Inc. feels like a blend of Fast Company and Entrepreneur.  The articles are aimed at the business owner for starting and running operations.  * **Businessweek** - $5 / Year / 12 Issues - I regularly read Businessweek, but primarily on their website.  I have picked up issues occasionally which are great, but their web provides a fair amount of access.  They seem to have a nice blend of news and unique stories about specific companies, products, and investment.  Recently they had interesting articles with fair depth on the CEO of Burger King, and the history of Sriracha.  * **Forbes** - $24.99 / Year / 26 Issues - I love the volume of content that Forbes provides and they seem to have a nice mix on a variety of subjects.  I use Forbes as my frontpage of the internet for business in conjunction with several others.  I actually feel like Forbes and Businessweek provide a perfect blend of business news with shocking little redundancy.  * **Harvard Business Review** - Wasn't able to quickly see a price.  I reference HBR a fair amount in regards to business discussions and think they provide excellent research material and information.  The writing style and layout isn't quite as captivating as some of the other magazines such as Fast Company, but the quality is excellent,  * **WSJ** - Obviously putting out a high volume of content, but you definitely pay for it.  I know a fair number of people who read it, but I actually have never known anyone to subscribe to it if that makes sense.  All the readers I know either receive a subscription through their work or university.  I think that shows the content is valuable and quality, but it might not justify the cost you have to pay for it as an individual reader.  I use a variety of websites to get business news, general education, and help me overall to understand the business world.  Specifically from the ones listed above I check Businessweek and Forbes daily for morning or lunch reading.  Forbes in particular does a solid job due to all of their external content contributors.  Seems like an interesting way to provide content if you can curate it correctly.    If you're more interested in the finance/investment world then I think Yahoo Finance and CNN Money are great.  Focusing specifically on investments then I really enjoy the content I get from Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha.  Some articles get pretty deep in regards to finance and investing, but overall I think they give great insight.  I read BusinessInsider, but I'll be honest I feel dirty.  Sometimes I find an interesting piece that leads me elsewhere to research more.  The content is primarily distributed in a ""Buzzfeed"" style format which has some questionable headlines and less professional content (""7 Crazy Facts That Sound Fake But Are Actually True"").  In Summary, I think you could learn a good amount on a variety of topics while staying plugged into news and developments in the business world for free.  I'm sure a few other people will chime in with other great sources that I didn't capture and some that I didn't even know existed.  I would start by reading a few of these sites I listed regularly and continue posting in this sub to help us keep the conversation going!" "I believe the answer is ""no"", if I remember discussion at the time correctly. A reference librarian could show you how to research this. (Undervalued resource, and they love an excuse to show people how to get the most out of a library.)" You're asking for a LOT. I mean, entire lives and volumes upon volumes of information is out there.  I'd recommend Benjamin Graham for finance concepts (might be a little bit dry...), *A Random Walk Down Wall Street,* by Burton Malkiel and *A Concise Guide to Macro Economics* by David Moss. "Q: A: Everyone that is short is paying interest to the owners of the shares that the short seller borrowed. Although this quells your conundrum, this is also unrelated to the term. Interest in this context is just the number. In the options market, each contract also has an open interest, which tells you how many of that contract is being held. For your sake, think of it as ""how many are interested"", but really its just a completely different context." I also prefer to crunch the numbers myself. Here are some resources: This is in the balance sheet, but the info is not usually that detailed. It is safe to assume that at least some portion of the cash/cash equivalents will be in liquid bonds. You may find more specific details in the company SEC filings (annual reports etc). I torrent all my shows.  For more exact numbers, runtimes are typically 22-23 minutes of content per half hour of syndication.  So it's more like 70% content if you include, intros &amp; credits.  But still, 1/3 fluff (roughly) is just unacceptable any way you cut it. Google 'information ratio'. It is better suited to what you want than the Sharpe or Sortino ratios because it only evaluates the *excess* return you get from your investment, ie. return from your investment minus the return from a benchmark investment. The benchmark here could be an index like the S&amp;P500. Are these estimates? I didn't see a link or source in there to actual financial statements. As a private company I'm not sure that information is public. A quick Google search didn't bring anything to light.  Regardless, I'd be much more interested in seeing Spotify's cash flow statement. For startup companies that can be much more indicative of health. I'm in the same position as you. I've found YouTube to be a great resource, as well as reading things from outlets like the WSJ. Having a close friend in a target school studying finance also helps a ton, as I have someone to talk to casually about things, as well as ask questions.  Check out [this](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63B2lDhyKOsImI7FjCf6eDW) playlist on YouTube. I've seen the professor (Lo) mentioned more than once in articles in the WSJ. He's written some books too that I'd like to read. I haven't watched that whole playlist, but the first few videos are helpful.  Martin Shkreli's YouTube channel is a great resource. It's mentioned constantly on this sub. His finance lessons as well as his weekly podcast are great. I also like to listen to (via YouTube Red) talks given by execs like Ackman, Gray, Simons, Dalio, etc. [this](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVJalJNQWimC2zWrIHR_bSQ) channel uploads tons of interviews and talks that I find interesting. They can get repetitive, but I find it fun to listen to these guys.   You can also get a student membership to the American Finance Association for free. Academic papers are still way above my level, but if you really get into it, those could be fun.  You can subscribe to email newsletters for some free content. Almost Daily Grant's is a good one, the normal journal costs like 2k a year.   Feel free to message me. They say a nonprofit think tank NBER is publishing the paper.   Here is where funding for NBER came from in 2016:   http://www.nber.org/CorporateSupporters2016.pdf     Contributing $10,000 - $25,000:   AIG AQR   Bank for International Settlements    Bracebridge Capital   Brevan Howard   Capital Group Companies   Credit Suisse   ExxonMobil   Fuller &amp; Thaler Asset Management    General Electric   General Motors Foundation    Goldman Sachs   Google   Insurance Information Institute   JP Morgan Chase Institute   Pfizer, Inc.   Vanguard   Anonymous (2)     Contributing $5,000 or Less:   Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System    Haver Analytics, Inc.   Macroeconomic Advisers   U. S. Regional Federal Reserve Banks (12)      Individual Supporters   Contributing $5,000 or Less:   Allen Sinai   Francis Schott Lipper publishes data on the flow of funds in / out of stock and bond funds: http://www.lipperusfundflows.com Robert Shiller works on stock market confidence indices that are published by Yale: http://som.yale.edu/faculty-research/our-centers-initiatives/international-center-finance/data/stock-market-confidence "EPS is often earnings/diluted shares. That is counting shares as if all convertible securities (employee stock options for example) were converted. Looking at page 3 of Q4 2015 Reissued Earnings Press Release we find both basic ($1.13) and diluted EPS ($1.11). Dividends are not paid on diluted shares, but only actual shares. If we pull put this chart @ Yahoo finance, and hovering our mouse over the blue diamond with a ""D"", we find that Pfizer paid dividends of $0.28, $0.28, $0.28, $0.30 in 2015. Or $1.14 per share. Very close to the $1.13, non-diluted EPS. A wrinkle is that one can think of the dividend payment as being from last quarter, so the first one in 2015 is from 2014. Leaving us with $0.28, $0.28, $0.30, and unknown. Returning to page three of Q4 2015 Reissued Earnings Press Release, Pfizer last $0.03 per share. So they paid more in dividends that quarter than they made. And from the other view, the $0.30 cents they paid came from the prior quarter, then if they pay Q1 2016 from Q4 2015, then they are paying more in that view also." "Yes these are the number of shareholders that are not held in ""street name"" plus the different brokerages that hold the shares in ""street name"".  So the stat is pointless since it really only lists the few people who own the stocks outside of a brokerage account and a bunch of wall street brokers." The other issue you could run into is that each deferred account is going to be subject to its own RMD's (Required Minimum Distributions) when you've retired or hit 70.5 years of age.  Roth's don't generally care about RMD's at first, but are still subject to them once the person that created the Roth has passed.  Having fewer accounts will simplify the RMD stuff, but that's really only a factor in terms of being forced to sell 'something' in each account in order to make the RMD.   Other than that, it's just a matter of remembering to check each account if you come to a decision that it's time to liquidate holdings in a given security, lest you sell some but forget about the rest of it in another account.  (and perhaps as Chris pointed out, maybe having to pay fee's on each account for the sale)  Where this really can come into play is if you choose to load up each individual account with a given kind of investment, instead of spreading them across the accounts.  In that case RMD's could force you into selling something that is currently 'down' when you want to hold onto it, because that is your only choice in order to meet RMD's for account X.  So if you have multiple accounts, it's a good idea to not 'silo' particular vehicles into a single account, but spread similar ivestments across multiple accounts, so you always have the choice in each account of what to sell in order to meet an RMD. If you have fewer accounts, it's thus a lot easier to avoid the siloing effect