What kind of symbol can be shorted?
Any publicly traded financial instrument can be sold short, in theory.  There are, however, many regulations associated with short sales of US equities that may prevent certain stocks from being sold short at certain times or through certain brokers. Some examples: the most basic requirement (this isn't a regulation, it's just the definition of a short sale) is that you or your broker must have access to someone willing to loan you his/her shares.  If you are interested in shorting a security with few shares outstanding or low trade volume, there may simply not be enough people in the world willing to loan you theirs.  Alternatively, there may be a shareholder willing to loan shares, but your broker may not have a relationship with the clearing house that shareholder is using.  A larger/better/different broker might be able to help. threshold securities list - since 2005, each day certain securities are not allowed to be sold short based on their recent history of liquidity.  Basically, if a certain number of transactions in a security have not been correctly settled over the past few days, then the SEC has reason to believe that short sales (which require extra transactions) are at higher risk of falling through. circuit breaker a.k.a. alternative uptick - since 2011, during certain market conditions, exchanges are now required to reject short sales for certain securities in order to prevent market crashes/market abuse. Some platforms/brokers have HTB indication for a stock symbol, meaning Hard To Borrow. That usually means you can't sell it short at the moment.
To short a stock you actually borrow shares and sell them. The shorter gets the money from selling immediately, and pays interest for the share he borrows until he covers the short. The amount of interest varies depending on the stock. It's typically under 1% a year for large cap stocks, but can be 20% or more for small, illiquid, or heavily shorted stocks. In this scam only a few people own the shares that are lent to shorters, so they essentially have a monopoly and can set really high borrow costs. The shorter probably assumes that a pump-and-dump will crash quickly, so wouldn't mind paying a high borrow cost. Timothy Sykes specializes in this type of trade, according to his website. He has some recommendations for brokers that allow shorting low-priced stocks: In this example, Client A has to buy shares to return them to Client B for his sale (closing Client A's short position).  Client B then sells the shares.  The end result is there are no shares within the brokerage clientele anymore, so Client A can't borrow them anymore.    The broker is just an intermediary, they wouldn't go out and acquire securities on their own for the benefit of a client wanting to short it, as they would be taking on the risk of the opposite position.  This would be in addition to the risk they already take on when allowing people to short sell -- which is that Client A won't have the money to buy the shares it owes to Client B, in which case the broker has to make Client B whole. &gt; I shorted it the moment it opened for trading at $42 dollars a share.  Now this is a shady part of the capital markets and the preferred treatment some investors get. Technically, you shouldn't be able to short stocks until 3 days after it starts trading because the trades don't settle for three days and only then should you be able to borrow the stock. But, big brokers and banks can cover managers they have good relations with and let them borrow the shares to short it. "Diversify into leveraged short/bear ETFs and then you can quit your job and yell at your boss ""F you I'm short your house!"" edit: this is a quote from Greg Lippmann and mentioned in the book ""The Big Short""" "It is possible and it depends on your strategy. As short selling interest rates are annual and levied monthly at a prorated rate. Interest rates are also low in general, with the exception of hard to borrow stocks. Therefore you can maintain a short position for weeks on end and notice nothing. Months even, if the position itself has already gained in your favor. There is no additional fee for opening the short position. Although some brokers have a ""locate"" fee, if it is hard to borrow the stock and they need to go find some shares to short. So you can do it as much as you like." Well, if the short seller has to pay the dividend out of their pocket, what happens to the dividend the company paid out ??  Sounds like there are 2 divdends floating around, the short's, and the company's, but only 1 share of stock. While I am not an advocate of shorting anything (unlimited downside, capped upside), you can: There is no way to know anything about who has shorted stuff or how concentrated the positions are in a few investors.  Short positions are not even reported in 13(F) institutional filings. I'll take the bonus points, though, and point you to the US Equity Short Interest data source at quandl. Exact rules may be different depending on the size of the investor, the specific broker, and the country.  For both the US and Canada, short sales occur only through one's margin account.  And shares that are borrowed for shorting only come from a margin account. Shares held in a cash account are not available for shorting.  From Wikipedia Short (finance) - The speculator instructs the broker to sell the shares and the   proceeds are credited to his broker's account at the firm upon which   the firm can earn interest. Generally, the short seller does not earn   interest on the short proceeds and cannot use or encumber the proceeds   for another transaction. As with many questions, I'd suggest you contact your broker for the exact details governing your account. "You can't short a stock unless there is someone willing and able to ""lend"" shares to you. And there are several reasons why that might not be the case. First, BSFT is a ""new"" stock, which means that NO ONE has held it very long. It's much easier to short IBM or Exxon Mobil, where there are some long-term holders who would like to earn a little extra money lending you THEIR shares. But if ""everyone"" involved is busy buying or selling the stock, there won't be many people to lend it. That's not manipulation, that's just the market. Another reason may be a large ""short"" interest. That is many OTHERS have shorted it before you. That's dangerous for you, because if some lenders want to pull their shares off the market, they can cause a ""short squeeze"" that will drive the price much higher.  And stock shortages can be orchestrated by the company or large investors to artificially drive the price higher. Unless you have a lot of experience, don't try shorting small cap stocks. Try to gain some experience with large caps like IBM or Exxon Mobil first. Those are stocks that people at least can't ""play games"" with. YOu will win or lose based on the market itself." "It will be helpful to establish some definitions: Long ""Long"" is financial slang for ""to have possession of an asset"", legally, and ""to debit an asset"", financially.   Short ""Short"" is financial slang for ""to be liable for an asset"", legally, and ""to credit an asset"", financially. Option ""Option"" is financial slang for ""to have the right but not obligation to force the liable to perform action"", legally.  Without limits and when taken to absurdity, this can mean slavery.  For equities, this means ""to have the right but not the obligation to force the liable to buy/sell a specified asset at a specified price with a specified expiration for that right"" for a call/put, respectively. By the above, a call option is ""the right but not the obligation to force the liable to buy a specified asset at a specified price with a specified expiration for that right"". By the definition of ""long"" above, a call option is actually not long the underlying. By the definitions above and with a narrower scope applied to equities & indexes, to be ""long"" the call means ""to have the right but not the obligation to force the liable to buy a specified asset at a specified price with a specified expiration for that right"" while to be ""short"" the call means ""to have the obligation to be forced to sell a specified asset at a specified price with a specified expiration for that right"". So, to be ""long"" a call means to simply own the call." "You cannot determine this solely by the ticker length. However, there are some conventions that may help steer you there. Nasdaq has 2-4 base letters BATS has 4 base letters NYSE equity securities have 1-4 base letters. NYSE Mkt (formerly Amex) have 1-4 base letters. NYSE Arca has 4 base letters OTC has 4 base letters. Security types other than equities may have additional letters added, and each exchange (and data vendors) have different conventions for how this is handled. So if you see ""T"" for a US-listed security it would be only be either NASDAQ, NYSE or NYSE Mkt. If you see ""ANET"" then you cannot tell which exchange it is listed on.  (In this case, ANET Arista Networks is actually a NYSE stock). For some non-equity security types, such as hybrids, and debt instruments, some exchanges add ""P"" to the end for ""preferreds"" (Nasdaq and OTC) and NYSE/NYSE Mkt have a variety of methods (including not adding anything) to the ticker.  Examples include NYSE:TFG, NYSEMkt:IPB, Nasdaaq: AGNCP, Nasdaq:OXLCN.  It all becomes rather confusing given the changes in conventions over the years. Essentially, you require data that provides you with ticker, listing location and security type. The exchanges allocate security tickers in conjunction with the SEC so there are no overlaps.  eg. The same ticker cannot represent two different securities. However, tickers can be re-used.  For example, the ticker AB has been used by the following companies:" "My take on this is that with any short-selling contract you are engaging in, at a specified time in the future you will need to transfer ownership of the item(s) you sold to the buyer. Whether you own the item(s) or in your case you will buy your friend's used  car in the meantime (or dig enough gold out of the ground - in the case of hedging a commodity exposure) is a matter of ""trust"". Hence there is normally some form of margin or credit-line involved to cover for you failing to deliver on expiry." A long put - you have a small initial cost (the option premium) but profit as the stock goes down. You have no additional risk if the shock rises, even a lot. Short a stock - you gain if the stock drops, but have unlimited risk if it rises, the call mitigates this, by capping that rising stock risk. The profit/loss graph looks similar to the long put when you hold both the short position and the long call.  You might consider producing a graph or spreadsheet to compare positions. You can easily sketch put, call, long stock, short stock, and study how combinations of positions can synthetically look like other positions. Often, when a stock has no shares to short, the synthetic short can help you put your stock position in place.