Investors haven’t been this keen to short the U.S. stock market since the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates.
Short interest as a percentage of shares outstanding on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, or SPY, climbed as high as 7% this week, according to data from IHS Markit Ltd. That’s the highest share since 2015, when the benchmark gauge for American equities slipped into a correction as Fed officials began boosting rates from near zero.