How are shorts converted into fully owned shares?
Answers: Shorts can not be converted into owned shares. Shorting and owning (or going long) are two different types of transactions. So to go from short to owning would require closing one position and opening another.
If you are short a stock and don't want to be short any longer you must complete the short transaction. You do this with a "buy to cover" when closing your short position.
If you want to own the stock you must place a buy order.
Note that you can be short and long on the same stock, at the same time. So be sure to distinguish between "buy" and "buy to cover" when closing your short position.
There is no way to "convert" a short sale of a stock. By short selling, you agree to sell to a buyer at a given price sometime in the future. Short sellers are betting that the price of a stock will fall. One example of how a short sale would work:
You short sell a stock for Dec. 2008 at a price of $100.
Actual price for the underlying security falls to $50 as of Dec. 2008.
You buy a share of stock at $50 at the spot rate then immediately complete the short sale by selling to the buyer at $100.
You pocket $50 profit. Notice that if the price had risen to $150 then you would have lost $50.
So, if a stock is heavily shorted, do you wait to buy til the stock turns the corner on it's downslide?
Answers: you only buy the stock if you think it is undervalued. Don't look at how heavily its shorted.
Why does gold give value to your money?
Answers: So, the previous answers agree: dollars USED to be exchangeable for gold and gold could be sold to jewlers and hi tech companies so the money was always worth at least what you could sell the gold for. Now gold and money are seperate with gold offering, I guess it's fair to say, more security, but less income. Now the change in value of your money depends on how much the world wants your country's products compared to how much YOU want oil or whatever. The Govt can raise or lower the value of currency somewhat by changing interest rates. If rates are real high here Frenchmen come here with francs , buy dollars and invest in T bills here. The bad news is the interest rate rise the govt encouraged costs more unemployment because costs are higher and people and businesses postpone purchases and we go into recessionn.
You can use it for many reasons. The reason Gold adds value to your capital is because its not traded like Forex (currency). Gold has been pretty stable, but with the falling dollar its a nice Hedge. Its sold on the international market, Gold is going up the dollar is going down. Its not really affected by what is going on in the world. It follows trends. It will always be valuable. Here is a nice article that might explain it better as I dont have time.
Good Luck
http://www.blanchardonline.com/beru/why_...
it doesn't.
money today has value only because any particular government issuing a particular currency of money says it has value, and nothing else.
there was a time when many governments tied their money to gold, but that time has long passed.