PortTrak - Covering a Short

Covering a short is the closing out of a short sale. Since you have borrowed the shares of stock in order to sell them when you shorted, you must now repurchase shares in return for the ones you borrowed. This repurchasing is called a Cover. As with a short, your broker will take care of all of the details about where the shares were borrowed and to where they should be returned.

The first step in having PortTrak cover a short is to push the Cover Short Button.

In the dialog box, you will see a place for you to enter the security ticker symbol. Since you may only cover shares that you have shorted, this list only contains those stocks.

In the Number of Shares box, you should enter the number of shares that you are covering. You may not cover more shares than you are short.

In the Price Per Share box, you should enter the price per share as a decimal. PortTrak will not recognize a fraction. This is the raw price per share, not counting commissions or other costs.

In the Commission box, you should enter the commission that you are being charged on the cover. Include here any handling fees, brokerage fees, or any other costs associated with this cover.

Use the Calculate button to see the total amount of this cover, as well as the Foolish Price Per Share (with all costs included).

Use the OK button to enter the Cover.

When you cover the final share, the proceeds (or loss) will be added (or subtracted) from the cash line on your portfolio.

If you did not cover all of the shares of a given stock, the new number of shares will be reflected in your portfolio. You will notice a new cost basis which factors in this and all previous transactions.

<% end if end function %>   home  | news  | specials  | strategies  | personal finance  | school  | help  

<% if request.querystring("source") = "yhoolnk" then referer = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER") if referer = "" then referer = "http://finance.yahoo.com/" response.write " << Back to Yahoo! " end if %> <% function YahooWelcome if gsCookieUsername = "" and request.querystring("source") = "yhoolnk" then %>

Welcome, Fool!

Be a Fool and get free, unlimited access to our site. What we offer:  • Take a tour  • Daily News  • Talk Stocks

© Copyright 1995-2000, The Motley Fool. All rights reserved. This material is for personal use only. Republication and redissemination, including posting to news groups, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of The Motley Fool. The Motley Fool is a registered trademark and the "Fool" logo is a trademark of The Motley Fool, Inc. Contact Us