selling short

Cultural

Borrowing shares of stock from a brokerage firm (see broker) and then selling in the expectation that the price of the stock will decline. If it does, the borrower buys them back at a reduced price, returns them to the brokerage, and makes a profit. If it rises, the investor loses money. To sell short is to “short” a stock.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Livermore got it right in 1929, selling short before the October crash.

From Barron's

Buying long and selling short.

From BBC

"Investment advisers will face more risk when selling short, which will harm investors, market participants, and market efficiency," said its CEO Bryan Corbett.

From Reuters

The industry has already changed such that almost no one can make any money selling short stories at all, and such life-changing advances, rare then, are all but impossible now for untested genre authors.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023