• three_trains_in_a_trenchcoat@piefed.social
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    8 hours ago

    How the hell did he do a long term bet against the market? Aren’t shorts short-term and they’re forced to pay after a set period of time? Even the inverse indexes will steadily make your money simply vanish.

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      I never got into options investing, but I believe you keep re-upping them. Every time you do so you pay a small price. So, the game is: ‘can you stay liquid long enough for the bubble to pop’.

    • ylph@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      You can keep a short position for a long time, as long as you can maintain margin, which gets bigger if the stock price continues increasing, and pay margin interest - there is no set date when the short has to he closed, it’s indefinite. Sometimes the lender who loaned you the stock can ask for it back, and if you can’t locate any more shares to borrow to replace the returned shares, you might be forced to buy the shares back and close the short, but this is not common, at least during normal market conditions.

      • sobchak@programming.dev
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        6 hours ago

        His company bought puts. They are less risky, because you don’t need to maintain margin. What you pay to buy them is all you can lose.