You dont necessarily sell someone something you dont know to be bearish. Bears arent necessarily short, and that is why bearskin jobbers doesnt make sense......If you feel something is going down you can get out of it or go long in a security with an inverse relationship....etc. Being a bear does not have any inherent relationship to being short in that security.
Do you sell something you dont own first when you are bearish on a futures contract, and go short? Of course not.
Saved this from somewhere... The term ''bearskin jobber'' was often used for those jobbers who ''sold short'' (sold stock they did not own) in anticipation of purchasing when the price had fallen.' The report says that the essayist Joseph Addison, writing in a 1709 edition of the London Tatler, likened short selling to 'selling the bear's skin before one has caught the bear' - hence the UK term 'uncovered bear' which indicates someone selling short.
Appropriate analogy, considering how hard it is to actually get the skin off the bear <i>before</i> he has died.
the explanation I heard of bears and bulls was the bears swipe down and bulls charge up with their horns. would both explanations not refer to the animals doing the same thing? I mean if bear jobbers is correct, then how would this describe bulls?
DD...I don't remember where or how I came upon this info, so I can't vouch for it, but here goes. Bears attack by starting high in the air and coming DOWN on their prey. Thus the downward movement. When bulls attack, their heads are DOWN, and as they charge, they lift their heads UPWARDS. Thus the upward movement. Interesting anyway.