Talk:2094: Short Selling

It's like he's doing that on purpose to make it extra difficult for this site to explain his comics. :D I at least understood nothing. Fabian42 (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

@Fabian42, Ha! Yes, I'm in the same boat with you, It's almost like he follows this formula: 1. Pick a topic that very few understand. 2. Make an analogy that is more complicated than a straightforward explanation. 3. Profit.

I've been reading a page on short selling, it's like they're speaking a foreign language. 172.69.70.47 16:42, 4 January 2019 (UTC) sam

It makes sense from what I remember from economics in high school: you buy stocks in advance for significantly above asking price hoping they gain more value before the deal happens, so let's say 1 share of company X is worth 20$ right now. Now I can offer you a contract that I'll buy this share from you for 50$, but on the condition that the deal happens in a week. If the value of the company stays the same, I make a loss; but if the value rises within that week and one share is suddenly worth, let's say 2000$, I make an immense profit. (divide each value I gave by ten and you have the bean/witch/child analogy from the comic) It's basically gambling on the hope that the value of stock rises. --172.68.50.118 17:24, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

How are stock markets even still legal? This is insane! Fabian42 (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

what would be insane would be trying to outlaw stock markets. They’ve been around for hundreds of years; business people are going to find ways to trade. -- 172.68.65.6 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

If you think short-selling shouldn't be legal, you should look into Quantitative easing and Fractional-reserve banking. -- Hkmaly (talk) 18:16, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

What you (and Ponytail, FWIW, given how muddled the analogy is of course) describe sounds more like selling put options than short selling. Stannius (talk) 19:10, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

It is not that hard to understand. Imagine you own 100 apple-shares and do not plan to sell them for the near future. You lend me these 100-shares for 2 weeks. I sell the 100 shares immediately. Now I have 2 weeks to re-buy them. If I’m lucky the price for these 100 shares will decrease somewhen during this 2 weeks. Imaging that I sold the shares for 200$ each, and could re-buy them for 170$: Then I made 30*100$=3000$. Of course you will get a fee for the borrowing. The 3000$-fee are my profit.

The risk here is of course that the shares could increase in price during the 2 weeks – then I would be forced to rebuy them for more that I got AND have to pay you the fee. That’s the reason shorts are more dangerous then longs. --DaB. (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

You sell something that you borrowed? Why would that be allowed? It's not yours! And what happens if you can't buy it back? Fabian42 (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

It’s totally legal to sell something that you borrow. If I could not buy it back you and I will have a problem – so you do this kind of business only with people/firms with money.

But to show you something that IS crazy, there is also Naked short selling – that’s like short-selling on speed. With this kind of short-selling, I do not borrow anything. It works in this way: Today I sell you 100 apple-shares, which I do not have, for 200$. You have to pay me immediately, so I collect 100*200$=20,000$. I will deliver these shares when I have to, which is 1 or 2 days from now (depending on the market-place). So if I’m lucky and the price drops the next 1 or 2 days, then I make profit. For example if the apple-shares decrease again to 170$, then I make 100*(200$-170$)=3000$ profit. Some countries (but not the US AFAIK) forbid these kind of short-selling, after the last financial crisis. --DaB. (talk) 20:37, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Shares are fungible, like money, so it makes perfect sense. If I borrow a £10 note from you, there's no expectation that I'll keep it safe and return the exact same £10 note to you; I'm probably borrowing it to spend it. But you don't care as long as I return £10 to you at the end of the loan. Every pound is interchangeable with every other pound; and it's the same with shares of a given type. --162.158.155.116 16:14, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Short selling doesn't seem all that complicated. It's the night before black friday, and your friend has [hot new amazing toy] that they picked up a few months ago before it got popular. You ask if you can borrow it for a week. Then you go out the next morning and scalp it to a frustrated parent that is desperate to get it for their kid but the store is sold out. A week goes by, and you head to the store and pick one up now that they are back in stock and on sale, and give it back to your friend. Your friend has a toy, even if it's not exactly the same one, and the price difference between what you sold it for and what you paid for the new one gave you a bit of holiday spending money. The danger is if the toy doesn't get back in stock or the price goes up due to demand and you have to buy it for more than you sold it. Andyd273 (talk) 17:45, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

It seems like the title text implies there are multiple witches involved. This should perhaps be mentioned in the explanation. 108.162.241.202 18:04, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I’m confused... which which is which?172.68.65.6 05:20, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

I believe the pun is related to how multiple people promising to win the auction is going to drive prices higher. If this is somehow related to some story with multiple witches, it's beyond my knowledge. It's entirely possible the witches are there only to connect the title text with the comic dialog. Also, I find it interesting that Cueball didn't actually ask Ponytail for her wisdom - he only made a comment which she then answered. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 19:36, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

The title text definitely says "witches" not "the witch", so it does appear to be a bevy (I'd say coven but that would seem to imply they belong to the same group, which may not be the case here) of witches it's talking about. -boB (talk) 20:55, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

someone takes !-> they believe !-> their strategy; 1 != 2; will (optative) -> shall (future); he -> who; witches -> witch's; would (desiderative) -> should (conditional) Lysdexia (talk) 02:38, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

What about that word "squeeze" in the title text? We need an explanation. There is a page Short_squeeze on Wikipedia which is surely relevant, but I don't understand it enough to explain it here. 141.101.98.178 12:41, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

There is an element of fighting the Witch - when a short seller is set to lose they do all they can to undermine the company. Elon vs. Short Sellers as case in point.