Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Shorting versus selling to hedge risk
If you already own shares in a company and sell some, you won't be short selling these shares if sold from the same brokerage account, because your existing shares with that broker need to be sold first before you are able to short sell any. If you own a portfolio of shares however, you may be able to short sell an index to hedge your current portfolio. Also, if you have your existing shares in a company but don't want to sell your existing shares, for example you don't want to crystallise a capital gain, you can always hedge you current shares by short selling them through a different broker.  Some other hedging options possibly available to you include: buying put options over the shares, writing cover call options, or short selling some other derivatives like CFDs (if your country allows them).