Margins Mr t8 Jul 2020 12:15
When you long or short a share you start off A few quid down, the spread, you are assigned a margin depending on the volatility of the thing, share, gold, currency etc, this is kept aside in case things go bad, if you shorted say Solg and a bid came in overnight and the share price rose 100% then you could even lose more than the margin, I never keep open positions overnight on shares probably never happen but wouldn’t sleep well knowing you could lose the lot. That’s why it’s important to learn all the pitfalls on a dummy account. The biggest mistake is to think prices will rise or fall in a straight line, the trend but have little ups and downs to white out some positions too close, I have lost money on shorting Dow on a day when it fell 900 points, so perhaps you should do the due diligence before using spending money. Good luck, it’s just that, in whatever you do.