jhg...ot ot ot "shorting against the box"
i guess i'm dating myself...when you short a stock, you sell a stock that you don't own. you must borrow the stock, and to close the position you buy the stock to replace that which you borrowed.
if you own the stock, and you short it, there is no need to borrow, this practice was called "shorting against the box" what it does is establishes a price that you will sell the stock at, but allows you to determine at what point in time you will close the position and establish your gain or loss.(e.g. short against a long in december, get the funds, close in january, so tax is in the next year) the gain or loss has nothing to do with what happens to the stock price after you short, as the price is frozen, it is usually done to move a position forward for tax purposes. if you own the stock and you short it, it is always a zero sum gain from the point of sale...makes no sense to short that which you hold (e.g. long 100 shares aol,short 100 shares aol at 100..aol goes up 10 points,you are down 10 on the short but up 10 on the long=zero gain, because you have the short covered by your long, an exercise in futility) ...just sell it if you think it is going down. not even sure if tax code accepts shorting against the box at the current time. |
