Today we will discuss a really arresting topic, as we have brought Insider Monkey’s compilation about the 20 biggest activist short sellers in the hedge fund world. If you are interested in investing, this list should be the first one to read. Investing is both simple and complex at the same time. Everbody can agree with the basic principle – you invest your money in a business, in order to profit from it. What gives its difficulties are the tactics, strategies and ways to do that. If you are not familiar with investing you can’t imagine how many tricks of the trade exist.
Today, we are discussing a certain strategy that is called short selling, or simply shorting. Also you can find a list of those who are well-known for utilizing it. Now, we would like to start with a brief explanation of short selling. Its’ basically the opposite of buying a stock. If an investor buys a stock, which is reported to go long, the prices are bet to go up. But when they choose a short stock, they bet on the price goes down. The profit comes from selling it soon, before the prices go down. We can easily realize that this kind of investment is pretty risky.
According to Insider Monkey’s investigations, activist short selling has become an influental part of the market in the past few years, and the most profitable ones are stock promotion frauds, accounting frauds, big business frauds. And now, without a further ado, let’s check out the list of the 20 biggest activist short sellers in the hedge fund world.
20. Wolfpack Research
It’s a global reserach company focusing on exposing corporate frauds. It was lanuched by Dan David who has already managed to expose more than $15 billion worth of frauds.
19. Aristides Capital
This hedge fund owns $95 million in assets under management. Its managing member, Chris Brown is famous for short picks and degrading reports.
18. J Capital Research
J Capital Research was launched in 2007. It has headquarters in Dallas, Hong Kong, Sydney, Beijing, China. It has market caps of about $2 billion.
17. Aurelius Value
It’s an activist short seller that acts anonymously. You can check out its latest report in Insider Monkey’s article.
16. ShadowFall Capital
It focuses on the European hedge funds and searches accounting frauds.
15. Richard Pearson (Moxreports)
Richard Pearson is an activist short investor in Chinese and US stocks. He has been sharing his investment analyses and thesis on his personal site Moxreports since 2012.
14. Blue Orca Capital
It’s another activist that focuses on fradulent companies, in 2018 it exposed that Samsonite’s former CEO lied about his education.
13. The Street Sweeper
The Street Sweeper has been focusing on fraudulent companies in the last ten years.
12. Gotham City Research
Gotham City Research was the third top seller in the period between January 2013 and March 2018.
11. Bonitas Research
It was launched in 2018 by Matthew Wiecher, and it focuses on investigating and exposing publicly traded companies.
10. Geoinvesting (Dan David)
We are half way on our list of the 20 biggest activist short sellers in the hedge fund world. Geoinvesting was founded by Dan David, and he is famous for being activist short seller in the world of hedge funds.
9. Muddy Waters Research
Muddy Waters Research was launched in 2014, and it provides research services on all kinds of usual frauds in publicly traded companies.
8. Viceroy Research
It is said to be “A group of individuals that see the world differently”. Its best period was from January 2018 to March 2018 when it was the top short seller.
7. Citron Research
It’s an online investment newsletter that was launched by Andrew Edward Left. Citron Research has published around 150 on fraudulent companies.
6. Kynikos Associates (James Chanos)
It is also a New York-based hedge fund. It was founded in 1985 by James Chanos.
5. Quintessential Capital Management (Gabriel Grego)
Quintessential Capital Management is located in New York city, that was launched in 2017. It utilizes long/short investment strategies.
4. Spruce Point Capital Management (Ben Axler)
Spruce Point Capital Management is located in New York, was founded in 2009, by Ben Axler. He got his Masters degree in Statistics from Yale University and Bachelor of Arts in Statistics and Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Business Administration from Rutgers College, graduating with Phi Beta Kappa honors and Summa Cum Laude.
3. Kerrisdale Capital (Sahm Adrangi)
Kerrisdale Cpital utilises utilizes long/short hedge fund strategies. It was launched in 2009 by Sahm Adrangi. The initial capital was less than $1 million, and by July, 2017 it reached $150 million.
2. Greenlight Capital (David Einhorn)
Greenlight Capital was founded in 1996, and it had its worst year in 2018 with losing 34%.
1. Pershing Square (Bill Ackman)
Pershing Square Capital Management was launched in 2004 by Bill Ackman. Herbalife Nutrition Ltd (NYE:HLF) was his worst failure with losing about $455 million. Herbalife was said to use a pyramid scheme. This was our list of 20 biggest activist short sellers in the hedge fund world, we hope you found it interesting.
