The Monetary Authority of Singapore will, after 1 October, require investors to report their short positions and short sell orders in securities listed on the Singapore Exchange. This will hopefully allow investors - HNW and institutional - and/or their discretionary fund managers to make more informed trading decisions.

Short selling, the sale of securities that the seller does not own at the time of the sale, will be reportable by each investor to the regulator if his short position goes above a specified threshold. This threshold is to be either 0.2% of total issued shares or units or S$2 million (US$1½ million), whichever is the lower. Reporting will occur through a new online portal, the Short Position Reporting System or SPRS.

The MAS will publish aggregated short positions of each security on Wednesday of each week, keeping the identities of short sellers a secret. Market participants can access the system now.

The new rules (to be effected through the Securities and Futures (Short Selling) Regulations 2018) will also echo SGX’s trading rules, which already require securities brokers and banks to tell the exchange about all "investor short sell orders." There will be no change to the current arrangement by which investors inform their brokers when they submit short-sell orders. SGX will continue to consolidate the short-sell orders of each security and publish the information daily.

A short position arises when a person does not have an interest in the securities that he/it has to deliver.