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Sale of a share which is not owned. This is done by someone after borrowing shares from stockbrokers promising to replace them at a future date on the hope (speculation) that the price will fall by then. He fetches profit if price of the share really fell down by the future date of replacement and sustains a loss if the price increased. Recently, short selling has been allowed in India by SEBI.
A person who speculates share prices to fall in future and so sells his shares and earns profit is a bear. He earns profit out of a falling market. Basically, here he is short selling the shares.
Opposite to bear, bull is a person who speculates share prices to go up in future so either stops selling the select group of shares for that time to be reached (he is basically taking long position on those shares) or starts purchasing that select group of shares.
Thus, a bear increases the number of shares in a stock market activating a general fall in the index—a bearish market. Opposite to it, a bull creates a scarcity of shares in the stock market activating a general rise in the share prices and the index—a bullish market.
Brokers play as a bear for some stocks and as a bull for some other stocks. while a bear broker is a non-entity, a bull is remembered for long time to come—Harshad Mehta was known as the Great Bull.
A provision allowed by SEBI to all Initial Public offers (IPOs) in which individual investors are reserved and allotted shares by the company. But the issuer has to disclose the price (at which shares have been allotted the size of the issue and the number of shares offered to the public).