Wall Street is doing something it hasn’t done in nearly 15 years: betting heavily against a market that refuses to stop going up.
Short interest in the median S&P 500 stock has reached 3.0% of market capitalization, the highest level since late 2011, according to Goldman Sachs data. Aggregate short positions across the index surged nearly 10% over the past three months, climbing to roughly 1.4 billion shares. Hedge fund short bets on US equities hit a 10-year high by May 22. All of this while the S&P 500 has been busy notching five consecutive all-time highs in early June.
The wall of worry keeps getting taller
Short interest had already been building momentum before 2026. As of January 2025, S&P 500 short interest stood at a record $820 billion. Since then, the hedging activity has only intensified, even as AI-driven tech gains and broader economic resilience pushed equities to fresh peaks.
The gap between positioning and price action is striking. Normally, record short interest accompanies a market that’s rolling over, not one that’s sprinting to new highs. The current dynamic suggests a market bifurcated between what the price is doing and what a growing cohort of sophisticated investors believe it should be doing.
