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In finance, short selling (also known as shorting or going short) is the practice of selling securities or other financial instruments that are not currently owned, and subsequently repurchasing them ("covering"). In the event of an interim price decline, the short seller will profit, since the cost of (re)purchase will be less than the proceeds which were received upon the initial (short) sale. Conversely, the short position will be closed out at a loss in the event that the price of a shorted instrument should rise prior to repurchase. The potential loss on a short sale is theoretically unlimited in the event of an unlimited rise in the price of the instrument, however, in practice, the short seller will be required to post margin or collateral to cover losses, and any inability to do so on a timely basis would cause its broker or counterparty to liquidate the position. In the securities markets, the seller generally must borrow the securities in order to effect delivery in the short sale. In some cases, the short seller must pay a fee to borrow the securities and must additionally reimburse the lender for cash returns the lender would have received had the securities not been loaned out. Short selling is most commonly done with instruments traded in public securities, futures or currency markets, due to the liquidity and real-time price dissemination characteristic of such markets and because the instruments defined within each class are fungible. In practical terms, going short can be considered the opposite of the conventional practice of "going long", whereby an investor profits from an increase in the price of the asset. Mathematically, the return from a short position is equivalent to that of owning (being "long") a negative amount of the instrument. A short sale may be motivated by a variety of objectives. Speculators may sell short in the hope of realizing a profit on an instrument which appears to be overvalued, just as long investors or speculators hope to profit from a rise in the price of an instrument which appears undervalued. Traders or fund managers may hedge a long position or a portfolio through one or more short positions. == Concept == The following example describes the short sale of a security. In order to profit from a decrease in the price of a security, a short seller can borrow the security and sell it expecting that it will be cheaper to repurchase in the future. When the seller decides that the time is right (or when the lender recalls the securities), the seller buys equivalent securities and returns them to the lender. The process relies on the fact that the securities (or the other assets being sold short) are fungible; the term "borrowing" is therefore used in the sense of borrowing cash, where different bank notes or coins can be returned to the lender (as opposed to borrowing a car, where the same car must be returned). A short seller typically borrows through a broker, who is usually holding the securities for another investor who owns the securities; the broker himself seldom purchases the securities to lend to the short seller. The lender does not lose the right to sell the securities while they have been lent, as the broker will usually hold a large pool of such securities for a number of investors which, as such securities are fungible, can instead be transferred to any buyer. In most market conditions there is a ready supply of securities to be borrowed, held by pension funds, mutual funds and other investors. The act of buying back the securities that were sold short is called "covering the short" or "covering the position". A short position can be covered at any time before the securities are due to be returned. Once the position is covered, the short seller will not be affected by any subsequent rises or falls in the price of the securities, as he already holds the securities required to repay the lender. Short selling refers broadly to any transaction used by an investor to profit from the decline in price of a borrowed asset or financial instrument. However some short positions, for example those undertaken by means of derivatives contracts, are not technically short sales because no underlying asset is actually delivered upon the initiation of the position. Derivatives contracts include futures, options, and swaps. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Short (finance)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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