What Is a Shortfall? A shortfall is an amount by which a financial obligation or liability exceeds the required amount of cash that is available. A shortfall can be temporary, arising out of a unique set of circumstances, or it can be persistent, in which case it may indicate poor financial management practices. Regardless of
What Is a Shortfall Cover? In the insurance industry, “shortfall cover” refers to a type of reinsurance arrangement in which one party agrees to cover a specific gap in the existing insurance coverage of the other party. The term can also refer to a type of consumer or individual insurance that covers a shortfall in
What Is a Short-Form Report? A short-form report is a brief summary of an audit that has been performed on a company’s financial statements. The report usually precedes a company’s summary balance sheet or financial statements when they are requested by another party. Key Takeaways A short-form report summarizes an audit that an auditor has
What Is a Short Gold ETF? A short gold ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that seeks to profit from a decline in the price of gold. Short gold ETFs are also known as inverse gold ETFs, or gold bear ETFs. In some cases, short gold ETFs will offer additional leverage to investors, such that
What Is Short Interest? Short interest is the number of shares that have been sold short and remain outstanding. Traders typically sell a security short if they anticipate that price will decline by borrowing shares of stock. The investor then sells these borrowed shares to buyers willing to pay the market price. Short interest is often
What Is a Short Line Candle? Short line candles—also known as short candles—are candles on a candlestick chart that have a short real body. This one-bar pattern occurs when there is only a small difference between the opening price and the closing price over a given period. The length of the upper and lower shadows—representing
What Is a Short Put? A short put refers to when a trader opens an options trade by selling or writing a put option. The trader who buys the put option is long that option, and the trader who wrote that option is short. The writer (short) of the put option receives the premium (option cost), and the profit
What Is the Short Run? The short run is a concept that states that, within a certain period in the future, at least one input is fixed while others are variable. In economics, it expresses the idea that an economy behaves differently depending on the length of time it has to react to certain stimuli.
What Is a Short Sale? A short sale is the sale of an asset or stock the seller does not own. It is generally a transaction in which an investor sells borrowed securities in anticipation of a price decline; the seller is then required to return an equal number of shares at some point in the
What Is Short Selling? Short selling is an investment or trading strategy that speculates on the decline in a stock or other security’s price. It is an advanced strategy that should only be undertaken by experienced traders and investors. Traders may use short selling as speculation, and investors or portfolio managers may use it as
