Business and Personal Finance Dictionary

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• SHORT SALE
  
  The sale of security that is not owned by the seller. The seller borrows the security, sells it, and then buys it at a later date to return it to the lender. The purpose of a short sale is to attempt to profit from the fall in the price of a security. Short sales are considered trading activities. For banks, when the security that is sold is "borrowed" from the seller's investment portfolio, the transaction is not considered a short sale; it must be treated as an outright sale of the underlying security.
  
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