Stock shorts collapse as no hedge fund wants ‘head ripped off’ Stock shorts collapse as no hedge fund wants ‘head ripped off’ Bloomberg U.S. flags fly outside the New York Stock Exchange Wall Street bears battered by the Reddit crowd earlier this year have yet to regain their gumption, even with stocks at records and valuations near two-decade highs. The median short interest in members of the S&P 500 sits at just 1.6% of market value, near a 17-year low, according to Goldman Sachs Group. In Europe, a short-covering frenzy has sent bearish bets collapsing like never before in Morgan Stanley data.