Selling Stocks And Commodities
There is a method of selling stocks and commodities in our economy that is called selling-stock-short or short-selling. Short-selling is a way of creating a false surplus of a stock or commodity. In essence we borrow stock from some investor, through a broker, and we sell that stock to a third party because we believe that its price will fall in the future (we are selling short because we are short the amount of stock that we have borrowed and sold). At this point all we have done is sell something that does not belong to us, making neither a gain nor a loss. If our gamble is right and the price of that stock or commodity does fall, we can then buy that stock back from a fourth party at the lower price and return it to the person or brokerage we borrowed it from. Because we do not pay anything to borrow the stocks, our profit is the difference between the higher price we sold and the lower price we paid to have them returned to their original owner.
The history of selling-short is the most calamitous in all of our economic history. One hundred years ago professional stock traders were ruining each other and many sound businesses by selling large amounts of a particular stock short. Then they would put out rumors that caused other investors to also sell that stock, driving the price very low, which would allow them to make large profits by buying back that stock at a lower price and return it to the brokerage they had borrowed it from. Other traders who owned that stock on margin might go bankrupt, unable to cover a sudden and unexpected loss due to unfounded rumors. The company that issued that stock may have other shares held as collateral for expansion loans. If the price of the stock should fall, the loss of price equity would force banks to call for other collateral, or they might seize property, take over a company’s management and possibly liquidate it. If a company had cash assets that would allow it to buy up these short sales as they occurred, it would not only support the price of their stock, but as less and less stock was available for investors to own, the price of a company’s stock could rise. The short-sellers would eventually have to buy stocks to replace those that they had sold short. This would create demand for a reduced supply, causing the price to rise and possibly catastrophic losses for those who had sold short. The Japanese do not allow selling-short in their markets, and for good reason. There have been many stock panics in our history and all of them have been worsened by selling-short.
Consider a long time investor-A that owns stock outright and is as much concerned with dividends as stock prices. If this stock is managed by a brokerage for that investor-A; the brokerage could loan that stock to speculator-B, who would sell it on the market to speculator-C. If investor-A did not want to sell, there would be less stock available to the market and the price would remain higher; forcing speculator-C to offer a higher price to entice an investor to sell some stock. But since speculator-B is borrowing and then selling this stock, he is helping his own gamble by adding this borrowed stock for sale to the market, thereby encouraging a price decrease simply by increasing supply. If the price does fall, speculator-B has made a profit when he buys stock from investor-D (who could actually be investor-A dumping the stock to avoid further loss) and returns it to the brokerage. In essence the brokerage has aided and abetted a loss to one of its investor customers, while helping a speculator customer profit. Selling-short does not increase investor equity; however, it does reduce it by the amount of profit made by the short-seller.
So why do stockbrokers offer short selling? Simply to make money; stockbrokers earn a fee each time stock is traded. They do not like investors who purchase stocks and then hold them for years to earn dividends. They want the fees associated with trades and market volatility, and they are happy to help speculators hurt investors. If they can they will turn all investors into speculators.
There is a big difference between investors and speculators. Investors put surplus money in the stock, bond and commodity markets for the long term. They hold stocks for years to receive dividends as a return on capital investment. They buy bonds and hold them to maturity and receive interest payments. They buy commodities and use them to manufacture goods and provide foodstuffs. While the speculator is a pure gambler, buying and selling stocks, bonds and commodity contracts based on price changes, seldom holding them to receive dividends or interest. Only a speculator would sell a stock or commodity short. Only a speculator would buy or sell a stock index contract, betting that the market as a whole will go up or down. Only a speculator would take an option to buy stocks, or sell stocks, rather than commit fully.
As more money flows through the markets to speculate in price changes rather than dividend or interest returns, the volatility of price changes will increase. When earnings reports are low or below market expectations, many stocks fall in price rapidly and somewhat drastically as speculators dump those stocks knowing that with bad reports other speculators will sell such stocks and others will temporarily choose not to buy. In a non-speculative market a stock would drift lower in price, or stagnate for some time. So speculators will move out early, and even sell the markets short to accelerate a decline brought on by perceived weakness, and reap profits for themselves thereby.
Not everyone in the markets is a speculator. If this were the case we would have daily panics and weekly chaos. But the amount of activity in the markets that is strictly speculation is increasing, and we can see this in the changing relationship between dividends and prices. How can a stock, which returns a 4% quarterly dividend to a market that was expecting 5%, have its price drop 5% or more in one day? In the opposite case, the stock price might rise 5% in one day on a dividend of only 1% above market expectations. Investors would not sell or buy enough stock on this information alone to make any noticeable price changes. Only speculators can do this, because speculators are working a pure gamble, based on near term strength or weakness of companies.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Craig_Hanks
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