Days to Cover

Days to Cover is a measure of how long it would take short sellers to buy back all the shares they've borrowed and sold. Short selling is when investors bet a stock will fall by borrowing shares, selling them, and hoping to repurchase them cheaper later. You'll see this metric discussed when analyzing heavily shorted stocks, because a high Days to Cover can signal potential volatility—if the stock rises, short sellers may rush to buy back shares, driving the price even higher. It's calculated by dividing the total shorted shares by the average daily trading volume. For example, if TechCorp has 10 million shorted shares and trades 2 million shares daily, Days to Cover would be five days. This matters because it hints at how much buying pressure might suddenly appear.