To go short on a stock, simply click the "Short order OK?" box (Advanced Order Form) when you place an order to sell stock you don't own.

When selling short, you actually sell shares you don't own with the promise to return the shares at a later date. If the stock drops in price, you will come out ahead when you buy back the stocks. What you're actually doing is borrowing shares of stock, which you return when you buy back (cover) the short.

However, to protect against the chance that the stock skyrockets, the market requires a deposit on your short position. When you short, one half the purchase price of the order will be reserved from your available cash. The proceeds from the sale are also held in reserve. So it costs you half as much to short, say, 1000 shares as it would cost to buy it. But when you buy back the shorted stock, all the money in reserve will be credited to you at that time. So if the stock has dropped, you make money.

For all practical purposes, going short is the mirror image of standard stock buying (also called going long). If a team that you've shorted pays a dividend, you will OWE that dividend on each share, and it will be deducted from your cash balance.

(If you're long stock, you can place an order to sell MORE of that stock than you own. The market sees this as two orders: One order to sell what you own and another order to short the remainder, i.e. if you sell 3000 shares of BSAND, and you only own 1000, the confirmation screen will display two orders: one to sell 1000 shares of BSAND and one to short 2000 shares of BSAND.)

Limit Orders

Limit orders are fairly straightforward. If you know you would be willing to buy or sell a stock at a certain price, place a limit order for the stock at that price (your limit price). When the stock reaches that price, your order will execute automatically and you'll receive an email confirming the execution. Thus a valid limit buy order would have a limit price below the current stock price, and a valid limit sell order's limit price would be above the current price.

Stock prices are all valued to the nearest 16th of a dollar, so when you enter the limit price, the execution price may be slightly different. All decimal values entered will be rounded to the nearest sixteenth.

If your limit order executes while you are short on cash, the Bosses will loan you up to 15% of your portfolio's value to make the purchase. They generously give you three days to pay it back. After that, they start talking to your family...

Commodities

Commodities act as specialized stock whose value is solely dependent upon a single player's stat--for example, CMATD is stock in Curtis Martin's touchdowns. As you'd expect, commodities delist at the end of the season at the value of that particular stat; if Martin scores ten TDs, a share of CMATD will delist at $60.00, no matter how many yards he gains in the process.

As a side note, the Bosses have been talking for years about creating a futures market for stats, but they haven't worked it out yet. It's hard to get the Bosses to agree on everything.

Delist

Players delist at a value equal to two cents for each yard gained and one dollar for each point scored.

Defense stocks delist at a value equal to two cents for each tackle, one dollar for each sack, and four dollars for each interception.

Read the FAQ for more information on the game, the site, and clarifications of rules.

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