[smogcutter]

I'm pretty ignorant here, how do you short "the market"?

[nodesocket]

If you don't know how to short, you should NOT be shorting. Shorting is incredibly risky with limited upside and unlimited downside.

[matwood]

You can do options, futures, short individual stocks, or even buy ETFs that take an inverse position.

As someone else said, if you have to ask this question it's something to be cautious about doing. But, you have to start somewhere so good luck.

[smogcutter]

I got a bunch of the same response, so I guess I didn't ask the question clearly.

I'm well aware of how a short works. I was asking what parent poster had in mind when they said "if you think the market's going down, short it". Short what? Specific stocks? That's not the same thing as shorting "the market". When people say "buy the market" or whatever they're usually talking index funds or etc.

So did he mean some kind of leveraged inverse VFINX? Or a baroquely complex derivates ETF that's just a ticking time bomb like those inverse VIX funds from earlier this year?

Anyway, sorry for the late reply.

[no_one_ever]

buy contracts for the ability to sell shares at a determined price later when the underlying share is actually worth less than what you are contractually allowed to sell it at.