I take it into consideration as an influx of short squeeze would be of benefit, but i do not allow it to affect my long decision. if im biased to long with good reasoning i dont care how many are short.
So its 3.9 which does not seem huge. Individual stocks are large short when the value gets to 10%. Since that 9/30 date the dow has rallied 1200 points almost straight up every day off the lows, so I just think that 3.9 is low already but shorts are probably lower as of today. Maybe COT data may be better, its broken down to retail and is more to date..