Short selling is sometimes referred to as a "negative income investment strategy" because there is no potential for dividend income or interest income. Stock is held only long enough to be sold pursuant to the contract, and one's return is therefore limited to short term capital gains, which are taxed as ordinary income. For this reason, buying shares (called "going long") has a very different risk profile from selling short. Furthermore, a "long's" losses are limited because the price can only go down to zero, but gains are not, as there is no limit, in theory, on how high the price can go. On the other hand, the short seller's possible gains are limited to the original price of the stock, which can only go down to zero, whereas the loss potential, again in theory, has no limit. For this reason, short selling probably is most often used as a hedge strategy to manage the risks of long investments.

Many short sellers place a "stop order" with their stockbroker after selling a stock short. This is an order to the brokerage to cover the position if the price of the stock should rise to a certain level, in order to limit the loss and avoid the problem of unlimited liability described above. In some cases, if the stock's price skyrockets, the stockbroker may decide to cover the short seller's position immediately and without his consent, in order to guarantee that the short seller will be able to make good on his debt of shares.

Short sellers must be aware of the potential for a short squeeze. When the price of a stock rises significantly, some people who are shorting the stock will cover their positions to limit their losses (this may occur in an automated way if the short sellers had stop-loss orders in place with their brokers); others may be forced to close their position to meet a margin call; others may be forced to cover, subject to the terms under which they borrowed the stock, if the person who lent the stock wishes to sell and take a profit. Since covering their positions involves buying shares, the short squeeze causes an ever further rise in the stock's price, which in turn may trigger additional covering. Because of this, most short sellers restrict their activities to heavily traded stocks, and they keep an eye on the "short interest" levels of their short investments. Short interest is defined as the total number of shares that have been legally sold short, but not covered. A short squeeze can be deliberately induced. This can happen when large investors (such as companies or wealthy individuals) notice significant short positions, and buy many shares, with the intent of selling the position at a profit to the short sellers who will be panicked by the initial uptick or who are forced to cover their short positions in order to avoid margin calls.