> And if you are buying an instrument where you can lose more than you invested, the approach maybe wrong? :-)
This is precisely why shorting can lose more than you "invest", because you're not buying an instrument, you're selling it with the intent (or promise, depending on what kind of instrument it is) to buy it back later, hopefully at a lower price.
There are, as said, depending on juristic regime, products which do not let you lose more than you invested.
On top of this comes national regulation: E.g. in some EU countries, retail traders are exempt from s.c. "margin calls" and the broker is required by regulation to "just close and not ask for more"
I'm not familiar with turbos, but to me it sounds like a CFD? How does a short position on a turbo prevent you from losing more than what you "put in"[0]? If you're shorting underlying X at price Y with a turbo, and price moves to Y+10, you're going to lose 10 times the leverage factor. You could have stop orders, but those are not guaranteed to fill at a price that would cap your loss to a desired amount.
> the broker is required by regulation to "just close and not ask for more"
Some American brokers will also forcibly close your position instead of issuing a margin call. Do you mean that under those national regulations, the broker is required to eat the losses?
[0]: in quotes, since with a short position it's not really the case that you put something in.
It is somehow comparable but with a CFD you are betting against the market maker /issuer of the CFD, while with a turbo you bet against the market directly - the issuer is just arranging the countposition in the background.
The loss is implemented by a knockout value, depending on your leverage. In all EU countries there is no margin call allowed for retailers, but this is not relevant for turbos anyway. The loss is included in the deprecation of the price of the turbo, the issuer is just the middleman, being neutral. Compared to a CFD issuer, which can print whatever price it wants. With a turbo, the price of the turbo instrument is connected by a simple formula with the underlying price.
A turbo has an ISIN, and is highly regulated by the Financial Supervision Authorities.
Actually, turbos are a professoinal instrument but they are sold to retailers as well in most countries.
And for sure, for a short position you would have to pay also the price of the instrument, which includes all the parameters/leverage? Shorts are in a way more efficient that the financing costs are working a liiiiitttle bit towards you, because of the interbanking rate that the issuer is applying, but this is negligibe for singe positions below 1m - and in reverse, with 1m per position, you wont use turbos, usually, its not the optimal instrument in those cases, in most cases
But nontheless, you as instrument user pay something, for sure.
This is precisely why shorting can lose more than you "invest", because you're not buying an instrument, you're selling it with the intent (or promise, depending on what kind of instrument it is) to buy it back later, hopefully at a lower price.
The risk is unbounded.