Independent Investor

Angela Merkel spooked the markets when she announced a ban on short selling certain bank securities.  There is a very real danger that this could be extended throughout the market, no matter what regulators say now.
So will this affect spread betting and contracts for difference?
The short answer is no.  The logic of the short selling ban is that it can directly affect share prices.  CFDs and spread bets can not.
Short selling is when a share is sold by a person before it is …

When shares are in trouble there is often a call for a short selling ban either on all shares or on a specific “strategic” class of shares such as banks.  A variation of this rule is the “up tick rule” where shares can not be sold short unless there has been a recent upward move in share prices.
Of course as a way of stabilising the market, this is nonsense.  All short selling does is to more quickly establish a lower price than would have …

Nassim Taleb, the author of the Black Swan, has in the last couple of weeks been telling everyone who will listen that shorting US treasuries is a “no brainer” and that “every person on earth should be doing it”.
Well, is it?
We’re quite sceptical.  Not because we dislike with Mr Taleb, who’s a clever man, or because we think that US treasuries are at the moment a steal of a buy.  We’re worried that people are talking about sure things.
Firstly US Treasuries, at least the non-index …

Yes, an idea of short selling is elusive to people. The short selling is just a chance to profit when price of the share goes down, using a tool (like financial spread betting or CFDs) and broker that permits you to sell the share or else CFD and after that buy it back. Sounds as if share trading in reverse order? This article will help you appreciate a benefits and risks in “going short”.
Short selling as the technique is used to profit from falling or …