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by cseelus 4369 days ago
I'm no investor and don't plan to invest for the foreseeable future, but out of curiosity:

Wouldn't it theoretically make sense to go short on something so obviously bloated?

2 comments

No. But that is a very good and common question.

The stock has to come from somewhere, which is usually the broker who finds someone to borrow the stock from and loans it to you to sell. There must be someone willing to loan that stock at the high price, and most likely the price won't stay that high for long.

You must then purchase the same amount of shares of that stock to give back (cover) to your broker who gives those shares back to whoever they borrowed them from.

There would be lots of fees involved (many brokers charge per share) and it would be very difficult to find someone to lend out this stock for someone to sell for the promise of the same number of shares at a future (most like lower) price.

If you do find someone to long you the shares then there's the high chance that the person who longs the stock to you is the main investor and they will drive the price higher by using their traditional techniques (spam, deception, promises of fortune), and then they would demand their stock back and you'd lose money.

It would be extremely unwise to short-sell a penny stock unless you really know what you're doing, the potential loss is infinite.

You won't find any stocks to borrow to go short.