Could be shorts loading up so they can drop price

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Could be shorts loading up so they can drop price later ..

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Someone made a comment similar to this a week or so ago and I started to reply but got sidetracked. Shorts don't need to "load up so that they can drop the price later". They just short - aka sell. They don't need to buy the shares first, then sell, that's the opposite of shorting. To short, they just sell shares that a broker has available for shorting.

If shorts were involved in terms of some of the large blocks that went through before the bell yesterday, it's because they were buying to cover (close) their short positions. Not because they were buying so that they could short next week - again, they don't have to buy before they sell short.