Shorting Shares
Shorting Shares Through Spread Betting
Shorting shares (often expressed as 'going short', or 'selling short') in effect means selling a share that you don't in fact own because you expect that share will fall sometime soon, perhaps after a specific upcoming event. If you are right, you can then buy the shares in the market at a lower price than you sold them at.
Shorting is mostly done by large institutions and is not generally available to the average private investor. But spread betting offers a simple way to get the same effects of shorting a share and is available to anyone. It is a key benefit of spread betting in that it allows a knowledgeable investor to make money when the market is going down as well as when it is going up.