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Sell Off

The rapid sale of a security by a large number of holders. This increases the supply of the security available for sale and therefore drives down the price. Sell-offs occur for a number of reasons. A stock may drop suddenly in price if its company issues a negative earnings report, or if there are reports of a new technology rendering the company's product obsolete, or if the company's costs rise. Sell-offs also happen for other, perhaps less rational reasons. For example, a natural disaster, which may or may not affect supplies, can cause a sell-off. See also: Panic Sale.


A general decline in security prices. This term generally refers to a short- or intermediate-term decline rather than to an extended period of falling prices.


A sell-off is a period of intense selling of securities and commodities triggered by declining prices. Sell-offs -- sometimes called dumping -- usually cause prices to plummet even more sharply.

References in periodicals archive ?
With luck, in the coming months we might get a bit more info about this shadowy sell-off from partly-redacted Freedom of Information requests.
Retail investors, as is natural during such global routs, have betrayed nerves that has led to a sell-off in the local markets.
He added: "The sell-off in developed markets and the currency crisis that we had in few emerging markets has triggered some profit-taking in the UAE market but the trend is intact so far."
But they certainly did not start the sell-off of school playing fields.
But the sell-off windfalls masked a fall in underlying profits which were hit by poor performance from its 54 per cent-owned subsidiary Hong Kong Telecom.
He said people might "rise up in a similar way" protests once they realised the ramifications of the sell-off.
Mark Weeks, of the Defend Council Housing Campaign, a veteran of anti sell-off campaigns in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, warned that if the homes were sold rent guarantees would be scrapped, promised improvements would not materialise, tenant representation on management boards would prove worthless and evictions would be common.
In a frictionless market, sell-offs would occur if assets can be sold for a greater value than their worth as a going-concern.
So far this election we've had a return of that Thatcherite ideal, Right To Buy and the weekend announcement of a Tell Sid-style sell-off of Lloyds Bank.
President Fujimori has closed the door, for the time being at least, to the anticipated sell-off of the huge Mantaro hydroelectric complex, which has capacity to generate almost a quarter of all electricity produced in Peru.
If the money from sell-offs went back into council housing, there would be plenty of cash for repairs and many more homes could be built.
This wards off buildups that could complicate the sell-off at the end of the license.