shorting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of short.

   He kept shorting the battery and ruining every bulb he connected.

   Hedge funds were shorting the airline as bookings collapsed.

   Note

   One spelling does several unrelated jobs. It serves the electrician's short, as in shorting a battery, or a wire shorting with no object at all. It serves the trader's short, as in shorting a stock, and the informal sense of shortchanging a customer. Only context tells them apart. The older meaning, to shorten, is obsolete. As a gerund naming the market practice, it becomes the noun for short selling.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The practice of selling borrowed securities in the hope of buying them back later at a lower price for a profit.

   Like selling a borrowed bike today and replacing it later when bikes get cheaper, keeping the difference.

   Shorting became popular among traders who expected the bubble to burst.

   The fund made most of its money through shorting rather than long positions.

   Note

   A mass noun for the practice as a whole, so it takes no article and no plural. Traders discuss shorting, or short selling, never "a shorting" or "shortings." It comes straight from the verb meaning to sell short, and it is usually set against long positions, the habit of buying and holding.

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