Comment on Open thread, Aug. 10 - Aug. 16, 2015

Thu, 13 Aug 2015 14:31:15 GMT

A lot less.

I think you're mistaken about that. As an empirical fact, it depends. What you are missing is the mechanism where when you sell a stock short, you don't get to withdraw the cash (for obvious reasons). The broker keeps it until you cover your short and basically pays you interest on the cash deposit. Right now in most of the first world it's miniscule because money is very cheap, that that is not the case always or everywhere.

It is perfectly possible to short a stock, cover it at exactly the same price and end up with more money in your account.

Discuss