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Community


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Online Share Trading

Engage and learn about markets and trading online

Shorting stocks

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Ben_ladin
Contributor
Hi Traders can you tell me how to short stocks on the jse and where to start and wich stocks will be the best to short Thank you very much.
9 REPLIES 9
Quakedog
Super Contributor
Best nick name ever to short stocks
Bchip
Frequent Contributor
The best advise I can give you is to not short stocks.
Learn that cash is also a position.
THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
Why look to short (a completely naked trade with often zero "bottom draw" option to hide your mistakes,) when you lack the knowledge of how to even achieve this outcome. Surely you would be better of just trading investment grade shares on the long side(?) But then given your moniker, you probably aren't in it for the long haul.
THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
better off... typo's rule- OK!
SimonPB
Valued Contributor
haha, yes typos rule ..
Russ
Super Contributor
Ben, I use cfd's to short. I suggest you read up cfds under "Help", then "downloads". Not all shares have cfd's attached to them, mainly the big ones. Some of them you can only go long, not short. If you key in a cfd in the "quick find" above eg. bilcfd and then "Trade", you will see on the trade page how many you can buy or sell, depending on the amount of money in your account.I don't think you should rely on others to tell you what to short. If you know when to go long a share it's just the opposite-short it when your system tells you it's going down-easier said than done!I agree with the others-don't short until you have learnt a bit more about cfd's, warrants etc., otherwise you will get your fingers burnt.
BullsnBears
Contributor
If you need to ask how to short then you have no business doing it.
Not applicable
risky stuff - shorting. Even some the of worlds most famous traders advocate against it. The reason being markets are inherently biased to the long side and short trades tend to be sharp and unexpected. The best shorting strategies tend to incorporate some sort of fundamentals - or reaction to news. But if you want to short, you are far better off using index futures rather than stocks. The spread and cost of CFD's make short trading them prohibitive in my opinion.
orange68
Super Contributor
demo account in any instrument will teach you, short with discipline and a goal. if u dont have one, how to short should be last on your list.