Also, shorting a stock is extremely risky if you don't know what you're doing. If you buy $1000 with of stock long (Think it will rise) then the absolute most you can lose is $1000. Same scenario shorting a stock, then the amount of money you can lose is theoretically infinite. Shorting a penny stock is so risky and financially dangerous that almost any brokerage will not allow you to short sell penny stocks, and have a minimum stock price of 5 dollars. Another option to shorting a stock that is less risky is buying a PUT OPTION. Options are also pretty risky, but very beneficial if you can learn to do it right. Before shorting a stock I'd highly suggest you play with option before hand. Also, binary options are okay too since you know the most you can make and the most you can lose before actually making the trade, or bet really if you're talking binary options.