When the upside is down: An intro to short selling of stocks
Doug is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst who spent more than 20 years as a derivatives market maker and asset manager before “reincarnating” as a financial media professional a decade ago.
Before joining Britannica, Doug spent nearly six years managing content marketing projects for a dozen clients, including The Ticker Tape, TD Ameritrade’s market news and financial education site for retail investors. He has been a CAIA charter holder since 2006, and also held a Series 3 license during his years as a derivatives specialist.
Doug previously served as Regional Director for the Chicago region of PRMIA, the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association, and he also served as editor of Intelligent Risk, PRMIA’s quarterly member newsletter. He holds a BS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from Illinois Institute of Technology, Stuart School of Business.
Jennifer Agee has been editing financial education since 2001, including publications focused on technical analysis, stock and options trading, investing, and personal finance.
It’s risky. It’s complex. And if you want approval, you have to jump through hoops. Sounds like the marketing pitch for an extreme sport, right?
It’s also a description of short selling, or “shorting the stock market.”
Key Points
- Short selling aims to profit from falling stock prices.
- Stocks can only fall to zero, but they can theoretically rise to infinity.
- Short sellers need deep pockets, nerves of steel, and special account privileges.
What is short selling?
Short selling aims to profit from a pending downturn in a stock or the stock market. It corresponds to the trader’s mantra to “buy low, sell high,” except it leads with the “sell” part.
Suppose stock XYZ is trading at $100 per share, but you think it’s about to drop to $80 in the near future. If you could sell 100 shares of XYZ now, and buy them later at $80, you could gain $20 per share x 100 shares, or a $2,000 profit.
What if the price goes up instead? You tell yourself that if XYZ rises by $15 per share, you’ll cut your losses and buy the shares for a $1,500 loss.
This would all be easy if you already own 100 shares of XYZ. But what if you don’t? Depending on your account privileges, you may be able to do it anyway. That’s called selling short (or short selling). And it’s where things get tricky.
Short selling is costly and complex
A stock represents a slice of ownership in a company, and the sale of a stock is a transfer of that ownership to someone else. But how can you transfer ownership of something you don’t own?
To sell short, you must first “borrow” the stock. Typically, your broker locates a stock lender, coordinates the transfer, and handles any associated fees. There are plenty of details:
- Borrow fees. When you borrow money from a bank, you must pay an ongoing fee in the form of interest. Stock lending is no different; the stock owner assesses an ongoing fee for lending out the shares.
- Dividends. Suppose XYZ pays a dividend of $1 per share. The money goes to the owner of record, and the share price is adjusted downward. The short seller would realize the profit from the adjustment, but would be responsible for paying the dividend to the owner.
- Sale of stock by the lender. If the owner were to sell the stock, your broker would need to line up a new lender.
There are other nuances, but you get the idea. Because of these costs and complexities—and risks, as we’ll see below—you need to qualify for what’s called a margin account.
Profit-Taking vs. Short Squeeze
Let’s say you expect an end-of-season blowout sale on chainsaws. All makes and models, 30% to 40% off. So you sell your new chainsaw online for $400. Two months later, you see the same model on sale for $325. You buy one and pocket the $75. This is profit-taking. You sell what you own, and buy it back cheaper.
But what if you don’t own a chainsaw? You could borrow your neighbor’s chainsaw and sell it online, with the intention of buying a cheaper one down the road and delivering it to your neighbor. This is short selling.
Let’s say a storm rips through your neighborhood, knocking down tree after tree. Everyone needs a chainsaw. The stores have run out. And your neighbor is knocking on your door, asking for his chainsaw back. You slip out the back door, drive to the next town, and buy the last available chainsaw at double the retail price. That’s a short squeeze—and a painful lesson in supply and demand.
Short selling is risky
Want to buy 100 shares of a $20-per-share stock for a brokerage or retirement account? Simple. Just pay $2,000—plus any transaction costs—and you own the shares. The most you can lose, if the stock becomes worthless, is $2,000.
Short selling is a different story. A stock can only fall to zero, but it can theoretically rise to infinity. That’s another reason short selling is typically done in a margin account.
Margin is a complex topic, but here’s the gist for short sellers: When you open a short position, you’re required to deposit and maintain a minimum amount of cash or other assets to help cover potential losses. If the market moves against you and the equity in your account drops below a certain level, you’ll need to deposit additional funds. This is known as a margin call. If a margin call isn’t met within a reasonable time frame, your broker might liquidate positions in your account, which could mean buying back your short position—often at the worst time.
In an extreme situation, a violent move upward can force short sellers to scramble to cover (that is, buy back) their positions. The mad dash pushes prices even higher, which triggers more margin calls and forces more scrambling by short sellers. This vicious circle is known as a short squeeze, and it’s a short seller’s worst nightmare.
The bottom line
It should be pretty clear now: Short selling isn’t for the faint of heart. That’s why it’s typically the domain of professional traders and deep-pocketed fund managers. But even if you’ve got the means and the moxie, make sure you know what you’re doing before selling short.