short selling

This term describes a high-risk financial strategy used by investors who believe a stock's price will drop. It carries a strong connotation of speculation and aggression, as the investor is effectively betting against a company's success. In professional financial discourse, it is a standard technical term, but in general news, it often appears in contexts discussing market volatility or "short squeezes."

As a gerund-based noun referring to a specific financial practice or mechanism, it is treated as an uncountable noun. It describes the activity itself rather than individual instances of the act, meaning it does not typically take a plural form in standard economic usage.