Yes, that IS a poem from 300 years ago about a stock market bubble of that time. The interesting thing is the mention of two animals. A bull and a bear. We hear about a bull market or a bear market all the time. We may also hear about an analyst being bullish or bearish about a certain stock or commodity. What does that mean?
If you have read some of the earlier lessons, you already know. But if you have jumped in here, let us repeat…
The “investment” might be a stock, future, ETF, house, antique, art, etc. Bull or Bullish means UP. Bear or Bearish means DOWN. Why? Why do these animals mean this? Where does this idea come from? A:
bull attacks with its horns going upwards.
bear attacks standing on its hind legs swatting downwards.
And it is that simple. In the future, whenever you hear bull or bullish and bear or bearish, you will know what direction that means. When someone has a bullish bias about a trade, they think that trade is going to go UP. The bears would beg to differ.
Closely related terms are long & short. To make money when you are bullish or in a bull market, you want to go long. Going long does not mean long term. It means buying a stock, commodity, ETF, option, or a futures contract at a low price and selling it at a higher price. When you are long on a stock, you are bullish on that stock.
To make money when you are bearish or in a bear market, you go short something at a high price with an intent to buy it back at a lower price. You may have heard the term short sale or shorting stock. That means the short seller is bearish on that stock. They sold some borrowed stock at a higher price with the goal of buying it back at a lower price to pay back the loan. It is a bearish trade that makes a profit when a stock falls in value.
Most people tend to think bullishly and thus long about stock investing & trading. It is a more natural thought: buy low, wait a while for it to go up, sell high, and make a profit.
Fewer people tend to think bearishly… unless the thought is simply losing money because stocks are falling in value. However, a bearish-minded trader has almost the same profit potential as a bull trader. In fact, bear market moves tend to be relatively fast and steep, so anyone who develops the ability to forecast such events can make a lot of profit quickly… while everyone else is freaking out about falling prices.
If anyone develops the skills to anticipate bull and bear trades, they can make money both ways… even at the same time. For example, even on the absolute best, bullish market day, there are some investments that had a bad day and are down. And even on the worst, bearish market day, there are some investments that had a relatively great day. In some situations, a trader might hold some bull and some bear trades AT THE SAME TIME… not expecting to lose on one set of trades or the other… but because some of their trades have upside potential and others have downside potential. So, they have a bit of both.
Since most people easily grasp going long, let us put a bit more thought into going short. If you are going to short stock, you will need what is called a margin account. Why? Because short-selling stock involves a kind of credit. You are NOT investing the cash in your account. Instead, you are selling stock (you do not actually own) today with an eye towards buying that stock in the future at the lower price you expect it to soon hit (to basically pay back the loan of shares).
This can be confusing to most people. In fact, only about 3% of all investors and traders go short. That means 97% of people do not utilize an excellent tool to make money in falling markets, missing what is usually some sizable and quick profit. So, let us at least learn a bit about it to see if you might want to at least consider being among the 3% that can. Here are the usual Q&A and winning and losing scenarios to better understand it…
Q: “How do I sell what I don’t even possess?”
A: You borrow the shares from your broker.
Q: “Why does the broker loan me the shares?”
A: Because you have established a kind of credit- called margin (account)– with them which, in very simple terms, is much like any other kind of loan. The margin account has you promising to pay any borrowed stock back and the collateral is usually existing holdings you have with the brokerage firm (like an existing stock portfolio, cash, etc.).
Q: “So I sell this borrowed stock I don’t actually own: does that mean the money from the sale will be in my account as soon as it sells?”
A: Yes… exactly as it would be in a trade where you are selling stock you do own. When shares are sold, the money lands in your account.
Q: “Then I wait and if the stock falls as I expect, I buy it back at the lower price to pay back the shares I borrowed from the broker?”
A: That is exactly right. The difference minus any commissions, etc. your broker charges is your profit. And this is KEY…
it is a profit made because a stock FELL in value… a profitable BEARISH trade.
Let us imagine a hypothetical stock and put some numbers to it to clarify the concept. Suppose you are bearish on the short-term potential of ZYX Inc. and want to short the stock. It is priced at $100/share today and you think it is going to crash down to $50/share.
You have already got a suitable margin account with your broker, so you opt to short-sell 100 shares at $100/share, which puts $10K in your account today… exactly as if you actually owned 100 shares of ZYX and liquidated it today.
Mr. Market does its thing, and you are RIGHT about ZYX. It quickly falls to $50/share. You need to pay back your “loan,” so you buy 100 shares at what is now $50/share for $5K. You can use HALF of the money you made from selling this stock at $100/share. Your “loan” is now “whole,” and you are no longer short. Your short trade is complete. And look: you made $5,000 on a bear or short-sell trade. Congratulations!
Other investors who can only think bullishly who were holding ZYX are likely feeling pretty miserable. The value of their ZYX holdings has been cut in half in the fall and now it will have to go up 100% just to get back to $100/share. If you think $50/share is the bottom and now feel very bullish on ZYX, you might use that $5K you just made to buy some ZYX shares and then ride it back up again. If it goes up, you will make another profit when you exit your bull- or long trade- on ZYX. Is that great or what?
Q: “OK, but what if I am WRONG about ZYX? What if it instead goes UP when I am short?”
A: Now you have a losing trade in motion. The very worst case would be ZYX immediately jumping to an infinite gain… which means you would be on the hook for an infinite loss that you are obligated to pay.
Fortunately, no stock jumps to infinite value in one pop but the core idea in a short trade gone wrong is a concept called “theoretically unlimited risk.” If you do not bail out of a short trade gone wrong (which involves the same approach of buying shares at now higher prices to pay back the “loan”), the size of the loss grows as the stock price rises.
Depending on how much “credit” you have in this margin account, if the stock rises too high, you get what is called a margin call, which is when you are forced to “cover” the losing trade by your broker… which involves immediately paying whatever the current price for the stock to pay back the “loan.” In very simple terms, this is when the “credit” you have been extended has reached its limit and the broker needs this “debt” cleared now.
Let us again use some real numbers in this situation to illustrate…
You are short ZYX today and instead of falling $50/share as you expect, it jumps UP $50/share. You short-sold it for $100/share and it has leaped to $150/share. If you get the margin, call right now, you will basically have to buy the 100 shares at $150/share to settle the obligation. Where before you immediately grossed $10K, you would have a quick loss of $15K (100 shares times $150/share). Ouch! If ZYX jumped to $200/share before you were (margin) called, you would have a $20K loss. And so on.
Now, there are smart trader tools to help protect against downside scenarios like this and one we use is called a stop loss. The basic gist of a stop is that it is a standing order with your broker to take action when a certain condition occurs. In this case, your stop is asking your broker to bail (or “stop”) you out of an existing trade. So, in a trade like ZYX, you put in a stop order to bail out if it moves a certain distance in the WRONG direction to then terminate this trade. The goal here is to minimize the risk of being wrong about the ZYX share price movement.
For example, the point in doing this trade was you are very bearish on ZYX, thinking it will fall to $50/share soon. With it at $100, maybe the “stop order” is set at about $110 or $115/share… basically saying if ZYX moves $10 or $15 in the wrong direction, immediately buy the 100 shares I owe at that price to “stop me out” of this trade. Instead of facing $150 or $200 as described above, you would likely be bailing at the stop price of $110 or $115/share and taking a much smaller loss for being wrong about ZYX.
All that shared, we LIKE shorting stocks ourselves… but we always use tools like stop orders to minimize risk. Sal is always relentlessly focused on keeping risk exposure as small as possible as that significantly contributes to successful investing & trading.
By knowing how to short-sell the right way, one gains the ability to make money in bear market movements too. You can buy stock when bullish and short stock when bearish… making money BOTH ways. The key to success in the less familiar kind of trade is knowing how to do it right.
2 OTHER WAYS WE LIKE TO MAKE MONEY IN BEAR SCENARIOS
Shorting is not the only way for bears to make money in falling positions. There are actually LOTS of ways. But two more simple ways we like are:
1. Buying Inverse ETFs
Inverse ETFs are explained well in the What Are ETFs? lesson. But in brief: when you buy an inverse ETF, it is just like buying a stock (not shorting a stock, but buying a stock) except this ETF makes money as whatever it is associated with FALLS in value.
For example, if you are bearish on the S&P500 index, you could buy an Inverse ETF on that index; like the ProShares Short S&P500 (symbol SH) and it would rise in value as the S&P500 falls.
Unlike shorting stock, this requires no margin account because you are NOT selling short here: you have BOUGHT into this kind of ETF and used cash to pay for it (not borrowing anything).
If instead of falling, the S&P500 rises, this ETF would lose some value… again, just like owning any stock and the price going down instead of up.
When you are ready to exit this trade, you exit the ETF just like you exit a stock trade.
2. Buying Put Options
Put options are also quite different than short-selling stock and somewhat similar to the inverse ETF description just shared. When you buy a put option, you are expecting the stock, future, or index to which it is associated to FALL in value ASAP. If it does, the put option price goes UP.
For example, if you buy a put option on that hypothetical $100 ZYX Inc. stock we referenced earlier and it does rapidly fall to $50/share exactly as you were expecting, the put option would have a huge gain.
There is no margin requirement to buy put options… because you are actually BUYING something with cash vs. borrowing something on credit. So that means the short selling (stock) negative scenario we explored- ZYX Inc. jumps way up does not lead to “theoretically unlimited risk” with a put option.
Instead, in a big bullish move of ZYX, the put option would lose- at most- up to all of its value and eventually cease to exist (called expire) worthless on the day that option is set to expire. That means…
using a put option to set up the same trade as that stock short sell would have a hard-capped downside risk.
What is that downside risk? The money you paid for that put option position is the maximum you can lose in the worst-case scenario. You cannot lose more than that. And the upside potential if you are right about ZYX is almost as great as the short sell (minus the relatively small amount you pay for the put option itself).
Since both of these topics are covered in What are ETFs? And What are Options? lessons, we will not dig in much deeper on them here… except to say that we like BOTH of these bear trading vehicles too and some of our services will recommend selecting ETFs and options- both bullish and bearish- seeking to take the best advantage of market events. Check the other lessons to learn more and consider subscribing to one of our services that actually puts bear market trades into action in bear market situations to help you profit when things inevitably fall.
The most important concept in this lesson is that you do not have to be married to only a bull market anymore. No bull market is forever. So, learning how to make money in bear markets- or better yet, let our services provide actionable trades to do so- is a powerful tool to add to your trading arsenal. We would love to help grow your success!
Let us begin this lesson with a classic poem…
COME, fill the South Sea goblet full.
The gods shall of our stock take care.
Europa pleased accepts the Bull,
And Jove with joy puts off the Bear.
Yes, that IS a poem from 300 years ago about a stock market bubble of that time. The interesting thing is the mention of two animals. A bull and a bear. We hear about a bull market or a bear market all the time. We may also hear about an analyst being bullish or bearish about a certain stock or commodity. What does that mean?
If you have read some of the earlier lessons, you already know. But if you have jumped in here, let us repeat…
The “investment” might be a stock, future, ETF, house, antique, art, etc. Bull or Bullish means UP. Bear or Bearish means DOWN. Why? Why do these animals mean this? Where does this idea come from? A:
And it is that simple. In the future, whenever you hear bull or bullish and bear or bearish, you will know what direction that means. When someone has a bullish bias about a trade, they think that trade is going to go UP. The bears would beg to differ.
Closely related terms are long & short. To make money when you are bullish or in a bull market, you want to go long. Going long does not mean long term. It means buying a stock, commodity, ETF, option, or a futures contract at a low price and selling it at a higher price. When you are long on a stock, you are bullish on that stock.
To make money when you are bearish or in a bear market, you go short something at a high price with an intent to buy it back at a lower price. You may have heard the term short sale or shorting stock. That means the short seller is bearish on that stock. They sold some borrowed stock at a higher price with the goal of buying it back at a lower price to pay back the loan. It is a bearish trade that makes a profit when a stock falls in value.
Most people tend to think bullishly and thus long about stock investing & trading. It is a more natural thought: buy low, wait a while for it to go up, sell high, and make a profit.
Fewer people tend to think bearishly… unless the thought is simply losing money because stocks are falling in value. However, a bearish-minded trader has almost the same profit potential as a bull trader. In fact, bear market moves tend to be relatively fast and steep, so anyone who develops the ability to forecast such events can make a lot of profit quickly… while everyone else is freaking out about falling prices.
If anyone develops the skills to anticipate bull and bear trades, they can make money both ways… even at the same time. For example, even on the absolute best, bullish market day, there are some investments that had a bad day and are down. And even on the worst, bearish market day, there are some investments that had a relatively great day. In some situations, a trader might hold some bull and some bear trades AT THE SAME TIME… not expecting to lose on one set of trades or the other… but because some of their trades have upside potential and others have downside potential. So, they have a bit of both.
Since most people easily grasp going long, let us put a bit more thought into going short. If you are going to short stock, you will need what is called a margin account. Why? Because short-selling stock involves a kind of credit. You are NOT investing the cash in your account. Instead, you are selling stock (you do not actually own) today with an eye towards buying that stock in the future at the lower price you expect it to soon hit (to basically pay back the loan of shares).
This can be confusing to most people. In fact, only about 3% of all investors and traders go short. That means 97% of people do not utilize an excellent tool to make money in falling markets, missing what is usually some sizable and quick profit. So, let us at least learn a bit about it to see if you might want to at least consider being among the 3% that can. Here are the usual Q&A and winning and losing scenarios to better understand it…
Q: “How do I sell what I don’t even possess?”
A: You borrow the shares from your broker.
Q: “Why does the broker loan me the shares?”
A: Because you have established a kind of credit- called margin (account)– with them which, in very simple terms, is much like any other kind of loan. The margin account has you promising to pay any borrowed stock back and the collateral is usually existing holdings you have with the brokerage firm (like an existing stock portfolio, cash, etc.).
Q: “So I sell this borrowed stock I don’t actually own: does that mean the money from the sale will be in my account as soon as it sells?”
A: Yes… exactly as it would be in a trade where you are selling stock you do own. When shares are sold, the money lands in your account.
Q: “Then I wait and if the stock falls as I expect, I buy it back at the lower price to pay back the shares I borrowed from the broker?”
A: That is exactly right. The difference minus any commissions, etc. your broker charges is your profit. And this is KEY…
it is a profit made because a stock FELL in value… a profitable BEARISH trade.
Let us imagine a hypothetical stock and put some numbers to it to clarify the concept. Suppose you are bearish on the short-term potential of ZYX Inc. and want to short the stock. It is priced at $100/share today and you think it is going to crash down to $50/share.
You have already got a suitable margin account with your broker, so you opt to short-sell 100 shares at $100/share, which puts $10K in your account today… exactly as if you actually owned 100 shares of ZYX and liquidated it today.
Mr. Market does its thing, and you are RIGHT about ZYX. It quickly falls to $50/share. You need to pay back your “loan,” so you buy 100 shares at what is now $50/share for $5K. You can use HALF of the money you made from selling this stock at $100/share. Your “loan” is now “whole,” and you are no longer short. Your short trade is complete. And look: you made $5,000 on a bear or short-sell trade. Congratulations!
Other investors who can only think bullishly who were holding ZYX are likely feeling pretty miserable. The value of their ZYX holdings has been cut in half in the fall and now it will have to go up 100% just to get back to $100/share. If you think $50/share is the bottom and now feel very bullish on ZYX, you might use that $5K you just made to buy some ZYX shares and then ride it back up again. If it goes up, you will make another profit when you exit your bull- or long trade- on ZYX. Is that great or what?
Q: “OK, but what if I am WRONG about ZYX? What if it instead goes UP when I am short?”
A: Now you have a losing trade in motion. The very worst case would be ZYX immediately jumping to an infinite gain… which means you would be on the hook for an infinite loss that you are obligated to pay.
Fortunately, no stock jumps to infinite value in one pop but the core idea in a short trade gone wrong is a concept called “theoretically unlimited risk.” If you do not bail out of a short trade gone wrong (which involves the same approach of buying shares at now higher prices to pay back the “loan”), the size of the loss grows as the stock price rises.
Depending on how much “credit” you have in this margin account, if the stock rises too high, you get what is called a margin call, which is when you are forced to “cover” the losing trade by your broker… which involves immediately paying whatever the current price for the stock to pay back the “loan.” In very simple terms, this is when the “credit” you have been extended has reached its limit and the broker needs this “debt” cleared now.
Let us again use some real numbers in this situation to illustrate…
You are short ZYX today and instead of falling $50/share as you expect, it jumps UP $50/share. You short-sold it for $100/share and it has leaped to $150/share. If you get the margin, call right now, you will basically have to buy the 100 shares at $150/share to settle the obligation. Where before you immediately grossed $10K, you would have a quick loss of $15K (100 shares times $150/share). Ouch! If ZYX jumped to $200/share before you were (margin) called, you would have a $20K loss. And so on.
Now, there are smart trader tools to help protect against downside scenarios like this and one we use is called a stop loss. The basic gist of a stop is that it is a standing order with your broker to take action when a certain condition occurs. In this case, your stop is asking your broker to bail (or “stop”) you out of an existing trade. So, in a trade like ZYX, you put in a stop order to bail out if it moves a certain distance in the WRONG direction to then terminate this trade. The goal here is to minimize the risk of being wrong about the ZYX share price movement.
For example, the point in doing this trade was you are very bearish on ZYX, thinking it will fall to $50/share soon. With it at $100, maybe the “stop order” is set at about $110 or $115/share… basically saying if ZYX moves $10 or $15 in the wrong direction, immediately buy the 100 shares I owe at that price to “stop me out” of this trade. Instead of facing $150 or $200 as described above, you would likely be bailing at the stop price of $110 or $115/share and taking a much smaller loss for being wrong about ZYX.
All that shared, we LIKE shorting stocks ourselves… but we always use tools like stop orders to minimize risk. Sal is always relentlessly focused on keeping risk exposure as small as possible as that significantly contributes to successful investing & trading.
By knowing how to short-sell the right way, one gains the ability to make money in bear market movements too. You can buy stock when bullish and short stock when bearish… making money BOTH ways. The key to success in the less familiar kind of trade is knowing how to do it right.
2 OTHER WAYS WE LIKE TO MAKE MONEY IN BEAR SCENARIOS
Shorting is not the only way for bears to make money in falling positions. There are actually LOTS of ways. But two more simple ways we like are:
1. Buying Inverse ETFs
Inverse ETFs are explained well in the What Are ETFs? lesson. But in brief: when you buy an inverse ETF, it is just like buying a stock (not shorting a stock, but buying a stock) except this ETF makes money as whatever it is associated with FALLS in value.
For example, if you are bearish on the S&P500 index, you could buy an Inverse ETF on that index; like the ProShares Short S&P500 (symbol SH) and it would rise in value as the S&P500 falls.
Unlike shorting stock, this requires no margin account because you are NOT selling short here: you have BOUGHT into this kind of ETF and used cash to pay for it (not borrowing anything).
If instead of falling, the S&P500 rises, this ETF would lose some value… again, just like owning any stock and the price going down instead of up.
When you are ready to exit this trade, you exit the ETF just like you exit a stock trade.
2. Buying Put Options
Put options are also quite different than short-selling stock and somewhat similar to the inverse ETF description just shared. When you buy a put option, you are expecting the stock, future, or index to which it is associated to FALL in value ASAP. If it does, the put option price goes UP.
For example, if you buy a put option on that hypothetical $100 ZYX Inc. stock we referenced earlier and it does rapidly fall to $50/share exactly as you were expecting, the put option would have a huge gain.
There is no margin requirement to buy put options… because you are actually BUYING something with cash vs. borrowing something on credit. So that means the short selling (stock) negative scenario we explored- ZYX Inc. jumps way up does not lead to “theoretically unlimited risk” with a put option.
Instead, in a big bullish move of ZYX, the put option would lose- at most- up to all of its value and eventually cease to exist (called expire) worthless on the day that option is set to expire. That means…
using a put option to set up the same trade as that stock short sell would have a hard-capped downside risk.
What is that downside risk? The money you paid for that put option position is the maximum you can lose in the worst-case scenario. You cannot lose more than that. And the upside potential if you are right about ZYX is almost as great as the short sell (minus the relatively small amount you pay for the put option itself).
Since both of these topics are covered in What are ETFs? And What are Options? lessons, we will not dig in much deeper on them here… except to say that we like BOTH of these bear trading vehicles too and some of our services will recommend selecting ETFs and options- both bullish and bearish- seeking to take the best advantage of market events. Check the other lessons to learn more and consider subscribing to one of our services that actually puts bear market trades into action in bear market situations to help you profit when things inevitably fall.
The most important concept in this lesson is that you do not have to be married to only a bull market anymore. No bull market is forever. So, learning how to make money in bear markets- or better yet, let our services provide actionable trades to do so- is a powerful tool to add to your trading arsenal. We would love to help grow your success!
Question or Comment?