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Rudydoo asked in Business & FinanceInvesting · 3 years ago

Stock Market Question.?

Let's say you have reason to believe company XYZ is going to lose an upcoming lawsuit badly and want to sell their stock short. They are currently selling at $50 USD per share. You make a short sale of 200 shares. The lawsuit does go badly, their stock is selling for $35 a couple weeks later. You then have to buy back the 200 shares you sold short, which yield you a profit of $3000. Where does the $3000 actually come from?

15 Answers

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  • 3 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    It comes from a loss of wealth shared by the buyer who bought your borrowed stock way high

    And the seller who you bought back from who sold way low

  • kswck2
    Lv 7
    3 years ago

    Well, if you have that inside information, the SEC will be visiting you soon.

  • 3 years ago

    According to Standard & Poor's data, total annualized return of stocks from 1926 through 2013 was 9.9%. With the potential for those returns, however, comes greater risk. Despite all the expert advice you'll no doubt come across when researching specific stocks, there are no guarantees as to how a stock will perform; the broader market is impacted by so many forces that are uncontrollable and unpredictable -- including consumer emotion, political events, and natural disasters. That said, long-term historical market performance data demonstrates the potential benefit of investing in stocks. This is particularly true for long-term investors who can minimize their exposure to market volatility and avoid buying based on emotion and reacting to market downturns in a panic.

  • 3 years ago

    Comes from the brokerage. Shorting stock is basically like making a bet with your brokerage. If you win, they pay. If you lose, you pay.

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  • Anonymous
    3 years ago

    From the proceeds of previously selling the stock that you borrowed from your broker.

  • tro
    Lv 7
    3 years ago

    the company

  • 3 years ago

    This is a short sale. In a short sale, you actually are selling a stock that you don't really have. When you close out the short sale, you MUST buy the stock. The money comes from somebody (like a broker) who is buying the underlying stock when you "short" it.

  • B
    Lv 7
    3 years ago

    loan from the broker

  • 3 years ago

    You sold for $10,000, so you have a credit in your account, later you buy the stock to cover the sale, so your account receives a debit of $7,000 (the cost of the purchase) thus you have no more position and your account has a credit remaining of $3,000

    "lee26loo" is totally off the wall - a short seller DOES NOT borrow stock, stock is borrowed for the benefit of the seller's brokerage firm, there the firm borrow the stock.

    "Zman" - the buyers of the shorted stock may not have loss any money and their purchase is totally unrelated to the activity of the short seller - they may have bought their stock at a much lower price than your short sale.

    Source(s): 40+ years on The Street
  • Amy
    Lv 7
    3 years ago

    Your profit comes from the fact that other people were willing to buy shares for $50 that you only paid $35 for.

    Just like if you had bought the shares first and then sold them when the price went up.

    The people who lost money are the ones who paid $50 for shares that are now only worth $35.

  • 3 years ago

    What you did, in extremely simplified terms, is you sold a promise to provide shares of stock.

    You collected $10,000 by selling a promise that you would provide 200 shares of stock.

    You then fulfilled that promise by purchasing the stock for $7000 (at the reduced price), and handing the stock to the people who had purchased your promise. That left you with a net profit of $3000.

    The people who bought the stock at $50/ share lost $3000 because they owned the stock while it went down, so they paid $10k for something they could have purchased later for $7k.

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