Short interest rose in the first half of August:

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Short interest on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq rose in early August, a period that nonetheless saw an increase in U.S. stock prices, the exchanges said late Tuesday.

Short interest on the New York Stock Exchange advanced in the first half of August to 14.2 billion shares, up 1.3% from the second-half of July, NYSE Euronext’s /quotes/comstock/13*!nyx/quotes/nls/nyx (NYX 27.96, +0.28, +1.01%) NYSE Group, Inc. said.

The short interest on Aug. 14 was equal to 3.71% of the total shares outstanding.

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!ndaq/quotes/nls/ndaq (NDAQ 21.13, +0.46, +2.23%) said short-interest shares rose, as well. There was short interest in 6.8 billion shares of 2,906 securities as of Aug. 14, compared with 6.78 billion shares of 2,903 securities at the end of July 31.

This is well short of the record set in March of 16 billion shares, but it does show that sentiment toward this market is still quite skeptical.