Cooking The Books

Each week BusinessDesk and the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's the risks and rewards of shorting the market. Hosted by Frances Cook. There's a saying in the investing world, that you should never waste a good crisis.  Another classic is that the best time to invest is when there's blood on the streets.  Behind both of these is the idea that when most people are feeling fearful, there are still opportunities around for the bold, who can zig while others are zagging and get the financial rewards.  One of these tactics is shorting.  Normal sharemarket investing relies on you putting money into businesses that you think will do well, and then getting a share of the profits if they do.  But if you short the idea is that you're betting against businesses that you think will do badly, and if they do indeed have a bad run, you'll get a profit that way.  Retail investors, that's the little guy like you and me, have been dabbling in shorting recently.  Investment pla