Investing to Wealth

The term “short selling” or “going short” used as a blanket term for strategies that allow an investor to gain from the decline in price of a security. Those strategies include buying options known as puts. A put option consists of the right to sell an asset at a given price; thus the owner of the option benefits when the market price of the asset falls. Similarly, a short position in a futures contract, or to be short on a futures contract, means the holder of the position has an obligation to sell the underlying asset at a later date, to close out the position.

Typically, the short-seller will “borrow” or “rent” the securities to be sold, and later repurchase identical securities for return to the lender. If the security price falls as expected, the short-seller profits from having sold the borrowed securities for more than he or she later pays for them but if the security price rises, the short seller loses by having to pay more for them than the price at which he or she sold them. The practice is risky in that prices may rise indefinitely, even beyond the net worth of the short seller. The act of repurchasing is known as “closing” a position.

See more on short selling on wikipedia:
Short Selling