Groupon short position almost 3 million shares: Nasdaq

People enter and leave Groupon Inc corporate office and headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, November 4, 2011.

(Reuters) - There was a short position of almost three million Groupon Inc (GRPN.O) shares at the end of last week, according to Nasdaq data released on Friday.

Nasdaq said the number of Groupon shares held short as of November 15, or short interest, was 2.92 million. That is 8.3 percent of the shares available to trade, or the float, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Nasdaq releases short interest data on a week lag, so the Groupon numbers do not include negative bets or hedges from this week.

Groupon shares plunged below the company's $20 IPO price on Wednesday. The stock slipped 1.2 percent to close at $16.75 on Friday.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)