How does shorting ETFs work? What are the costs and tax implications?
No, the expense ratio would be something you wouldn't be charged. If you bought shares of the ETF long, then the dividends are usually reduced by the expense ratio if you wanted to know where to find that charge in general. You would have to make up for any dividends the underlying stocks as part of general shorting since the idea is that once you buy to put back the shares, it has to appear as if they weren't missing in the first place. No, the authorized participant would handle changes to the underlying structure if needed.
Adding to the answers above, there is another source of risk: if one of the companies you are short receives a bid to be purchased by another company, the price will most probably rocket... Owning a stock via a fund and selling it short simultaneously should have the same net financial effect as not owning the stock.  This should work both for your personal finances as well as the impact of (not) owning the shares has on the stock's price. To use an extreme example, suppose there are 4 million outstanding shares of Evil Oil Company.  Suppose a group of concerned index fund investors owns 25% of the stock and sells short the same amount.   They've borrowed someone else's 25% of the company and sold it to a third party.  It should have the same effect as selling their own shares of the company, which they can't otherwise do.  Now when 25% of the company's stock becomes available for purchase at market price, what happens to the stock?  It falls, of course.   Regarding how it affects your own finances, suppose the stock price rises and the investors have to return the shares to the lender.  They buy 1 million shares at market price, pushing the stock price up, give them back, and then sell another million shares short, subsequently pushing the stock price back down. If enough people do this to effect the share price of a stock or asset class, the managers at the companies might be forced into behaving in a way that satisfies the investors.  In your case, perhaps the company could issue a press release and fire the employee that tried to extort money from your wife's estate in order to win your investment business back.  Okay, well maybe that's a stretch. When you short a stock and the stock goes ex-div. you have to pay out an amount equal to the dividend. So in your example, GG would short the stock at $10.00, buy back at $9.00 and be charged $1.00 for the dividend. Net effect $0.00. "The reason for selling a stock ""short"", is for when you believe the stock value will decrease in the near future. Here is an example: Today Exxon-Mobile stock is selling for $100 / share. You are expecting the price to decrease, so you want to short the stock, which means your broker (i.e. eTrade, etc) allows you to borrow shares without paying money, and those shares are transferred into your account, and then you sell them and receive money for the sale. But you didn't actually own those shares, you only borrowed them, so you need to return the shares to your broker sometime in the future.  Let's say you borrow 10 shares @ $100, and you sell them at the market price of $100, you receive $1,000 in your account. But you owe your broker 10 shares, which you need to return sometime in the future. A few days later, the share price has decreased to $80. Now you can buy 10 shares from the market at a total cost of $800. You get 10 shares, and return those shares to your broker. Since you originally took in $1,000, and you just paid out $800, you keep a resulting profit of $200" Right now, the unrealized appreciation of Vanguard Tax-Managed   Small-Cap Fund Admiral Shares is 28.4% of NAV. As long as the fund   delivers decent returns over the long term, is there anything stopping   this amount from ballooning to, say, 90% fifty years hence? I'd have a heck of a time imagining how this grows to that high a number realistically.  The inflows and outflows of the fund are a bigger question along with what kinds of changes are there to capital gains that may make the fund try to hold onto the stocks longer and minimize the tax burden. If this happens, won't new investors be scared away by the prospect of   owing taxes on these gains? For example, a financial crisis or a   superior new investment technology could lead investors to dump their   shares of tax-managed index funds, triggering enormous capital-gains   distributions. And if new investors are scared away, won't the fund be   forced to sell its assets to cover redemptions (even if there is no   disruptive event), leading to larger capital-gains distributions than   in the past? Possibly but you have more than a few assumptions in this to my mind that I wonder how well are you estimating the probability of this happening. Finally, do ETFs avoid this problem (assuming it is a problem)? Yes, ETFs have creation and redemption units that allow for in-kind transactions and thus there isn't a selling of the stock.  However, if one wants to pull out various unlikely scenarios then there is the potential of the market being shut down for an extended period of time that would prevent one from selling shares of the ETF that may or may not be as applicable as open-end fund shares. I would however suggest researching if there are hybrid funds that mix open-end fund shares with ETF shares which could be an alternative here. "Generally, ETFs work on the basis that there exists a pair of values that can be taken at any moment in time: A Net Asset Value of each share in the fund and a trading market price of each share in the fund.  It may help to picture these in baskets of about 50,000 shares for the creation/redemption process. If the NAV is greater than the market price, then arbitrageurs will buy up shares at the market price and do an ""in-kind"" transaction that will be worth the NAV value that the arbitrageurs could turn around and sell for an immediate profit. If the market price is greater than the NAV, then the arbitrageurs will buy up the underlying securities that can be exchanged ""in-kind"" for shares in the fund that can then be sold on the market for an immediate profit. What is the ETF Creation/Redemption Mechanism? would be a source on this though I imagine there are others. Now, in the case of VXX, there is something to be said for how much trading is being done and what impact this can have. From a July 8, 2013 Yahoo Finance article: At big option trade in the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Note   is looking for another jump in volatility.  More than 250,000 VXX options have already traded, twice its daily   average over the last month. optionMONSTER systems show that a trader   bought 13,298 August 26 calls for the ask price of $0.24 in volume   that was 6 times the strike's previous open interest, clearly   indicating new activity. Now the total returns of the ETF are a combination of changes in share price plus what happens with the distributions which could be held as cash or reinvested to purchase more shares." This is a gross simplification as there are a few different ways to do this. The principle overall is the same though. To short a stock, you borrow X shares from a third party and sell them at the current price. You now owe the lender X shares but have the proceeds from the sale. If the share price falls you can buy back those shares at the new lower price, return them to the lender and pocket the difference. The risk comes when the share price goes the other way, you now owe the lender the new value of the shares, so have to find some way to cover the difference. This happened a while back when Porsche made a fortune buying shares in Volkswagen from short sellers, and the price unexpectedly rose. You can buy and sell stocks, if you like. You'll have to pay taxes on any profits. And short-term is speculating, not investing, and has high risk "An important point yet to be mentioned is that, with a standard investment, the most you can lose of your £100 stake is £100 (if the company literally goes bust, say). With shorting on the other hand, your downside is not limited to your initial stake.  You could ""invest"" £100, but end up owing £200, £500, or, well, the sky's the limit. Shorting is dangerous even for experienced investors.  For a beginner, it is about the worst possible investment strategy I can think of!" Investopedia laid out the general information of tax treatment on the ETF fund structures as well as their underlying asset classes: http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0213/how-tax-treatments-of-etfs-work.aspx "Oddly enough, in the USA, there are enough cost and tax savings between buy-and-hold of a static portfolio and buying into a fund that a few brokerages have sprung up around the concept, such as FolioFN, to make it easier for small investors to manage numerous small holdings via fractional shares and no commission window trades. A static buy-and-hold portfolio of stocks can be had for a few dollars per trade.  Buying into a fund involves various annual and one time fees that are quoted as percentages of the investment.  Even 1-2% can be a lot, especially if it is every year.  Typically, a US mutual fund must send out a 1099 tax form to each investor, stating that investors share of the dividends and capital gains for each year. The true impact of this is not obvious until you get a tax bill for gains that you did not enjoy, which can happen when you buy into a fund late in the year that has realized capital gains.  What fund investors sometimes fail to appreciate is that they are taxed both on their own holding period of fund shares and the fund's capital gains distributions determined by the fund's holding period of its investments. For example, if ABC tech fund bought Google stock several years ago for $100/share, and sold it for $500/share in the same year you bought into the ABC fund, then you will receive a ""capital gains distribution"" on your 1099 that will include some dollar amount, which is considered your share of that long-term profit for tax purposes. The amount is not customized for your holding period, capital gains are distributed pro-rata among all current fund shareholders as of the ex-distribution date. Morningstar tracks this as Potential Capital Gains Exposure and so there is a way to check this possibility before investing. Funds who have unsold losers in their portfolio are also affected by these same rules, have been called ""free rides"" because those funds, if they find some winners, will have losers that they can sell simultaneously with the winners to remain tax neutral.  See ""On the Lookout for Tax Traps and Free Riders"", Morningstar, pdf In contrast, buying-and-holding a portfolio does not attract any capital gains taxes until the stocks in the portfolio are sold at a profit.  A fund often is actively managed.  That is, experts will alter the portfolio from time to time or advise the fund to buy or sell particular investments. Note however, that even the experts are required to tell you that ""past performance is no guarantee of future results.""" "The most fundamental answer is that when you short a stock (or an ETF), you short a specific number of shares on a specific day, and you probably don't adjust this much as the price wobbles goes up and down. But an inverse fund is not tied to a specific start date, like your own transaction is.  It adjusts on an ongoing basis to maintain its full specified leverage at all times.  If the underlying index goes up, it has to effectively ""buy in"" because its collateral is no longer sufficient to support its open position.  On the other hand, if the underlying index goes down, that frees up collateral which is used to effectively short-sell more of the underlying.  So by design it will buy high and sell low, and so any volatility will pump money out of the fund. I say ""effectively"" because inverse funds use derivatives and contracts, rather than actually shorting the underlying security.   Which brings up the less fundamental issue.  These derivatives and contracts are relatively opaque; the counter-parties are in it for their own benefit, not yours; and the people who run the fund get their expenses regardless of how you do, and they are hard for you to monitor.  This is a hazardous combination." I personally invest in 4 different ETFs.  I have $1000 to invest every month.  To save on transaction costs, I invest that sum in only one ETF each month, the one that is most underweight at the time. For example, I invest in XIC (30%), VTI (30%), VEA (30%), and VWO (10%).  One month, I'll buy XIC, next month VTA, next month, VEA, then XIC again.  Eventually I'll buy VWO when it's $1000 underweight.  If one ETF tanks, I may buy it twice in a row to reach my target allocation, or if it shoots up, I may skip buying it for a while.  My actual asset allocation never ends up looking exactly like the target, but it trends towards it.  And I only pay one commission a month. If this is in a tax-sheltered account (main TFSA or RRSP), another option is to invest in no-load index mutual funds that match the ETFs each month (assuming there's no commission to buy them).  Once they reach a certain amount, sell and buy the equivalent ETFs.  This is not a good approach in a non-registered account because you will have to pay tax on any capital gains when selling the mutual funds. I'm just began playing in the stock   market. I assume you mean that you're not using real money, but rather you have an account with a stock simulator like the one Investopedia offers. I am hopeful that's the case due to the high level of risk involved in short selling like you're describing. Here is another post about short selling that expands a bit on that point. To learn much more about the ins and outs of short selling I will point again to Investopedia. I swear I don't work for them, but they do have a great short selling tutorial.  When you short sell a stock you are borrowing the stock from your broker. (The broker typically uses stock held by one or more of his clients to cover the loan.) Since it's basically a loan you pay interest. Of course the longer you hold it the more interest you pay. Also, as Joe mentioned there are scenarios in which you may be forced to buy the stock (at a higher price than you sold it). This tends to happen when the stock price is going against the short sell (i.e. you lose money). Finally, did anyone mention that the potential losses in a short sell are infinite? The problem there is that there's a tax due on that dividend. So, if you wish, you can buy the ETF and specify to reinvest dividends, but you'll have to pay a bit of tax on them, and keep track of your basis, if the account isn't a retirement account.