SMX (Security Matters) Public L (SMX): Fails to Deliver & Reg SHO Threshold List

A fail to deliver happens when a seller does not deliver shares to the buyer by the settlement date (one business day after the trade, T+1). The SEC publishes the outstanding fails balance in SMX for each settlement date, taken from the NSCC Continuous Net Settlement system, twice a month with a delay of a few weeks.

Not necessarily. The SEC notes that fails can occur on both long and short sales, for example from operational delays or a broker not receiving shares in time. The data does not say which trades failed or why, so a fails balance is not proof of naked shorting.

No. Each figure is the total balance of fails still open on that settlement date, not new fails that day. A fail that lasts several days appears in each of those days, so adding days together counts the same shares more than once.

A security lands on the threshold list when it has fails of at least 10,000 shares that are also at least 0.5% of shares outstanding for five consecutive settlement days. The listing market publishes the list every trading day (Nasdaq, NYSE, Cboe; FINRA for OTC stocks). If a fail in a threshold security stays open for 13 consecutive settlement days, Rule 203(b)(3) requires the clearing firm to close it out by buying shares, and until it does it cannot accept further short sales in that stock without first borrowing or arranging to borrow the shares.