A practical guide to the risky practice of betting against stocks.

How short sellers profit from disasters that afflict individuals, markets, and nations The Most Dangerous Trade serves up tales from the dark side of the world marketplace to reveal how traders profit from the failure and, often, the financial ruin of others. In this book Richard Teitelbaum profiles more than a dozen short sellers to reveal how they employ the tactics, strategies, and various styles to zero in on their target, get the needed financing, and see their investment through to its ultimate conclusion. The short sellers profiled will include stories of both their successful investments as well as their disastrous ventures. The book will examine the different styles, strategies, and tactics utilized, looking at how each short seller researches his or her targets, obtains financing, puts on a trade, and sees the investment through to fruition--or failure. With the appeal of a well-written adventure novel, The Most Dangerous Trade reveals how these investors seek publicity to help drive down a stock and shows the often bitter and controversial battles that ensue.

Listed in Bloomberg''s TOP 50 BUSINESS BOOKS OF 2010 and shortlisted for Spear''s FINANCIAL HISTORY OF THE YEAR AWARD "Robert Sloan works in the hedge-fund industry. As he shows in this readable polemic, dislike of shorting has a long history. . . . Someone has to point out when the emperor has no clothes. The shorts were among the biggest skeptics of the subprime-mortgage boom and of the banks that financed it. And when they were proved right, their activities were banned. Gratitude, huh?" The Economist "If Robert Sloan manages to go the distance in Don''t Blame the Shorts, it is because his book is as much about historical tensions between Washington and Wall Street as the practice of short selling.

A revealing expose by one of today's most successful and controversial speculators Short-selling, or betting on a drop in the price of a stock, has been described by its many opponents as everything from shady to downright evil. And no one today personifies the practice better than short-seller extraordinaire Manuel Asensio. Though he has been branded in the press as a market saboteur, Asensio staunchly defends his practices, claiming that, above all, he is out to expose rampant fraud being perpetrated by unscrupulous stock promoters. Is Asensio a "Minion of Satan" as they say in the online chat rooms, or is he really a misunderstood guardian angel of free market capitalism? In this tell-all account, Asensio offers readers a lively narrative, peppered with unforgettable anecdotes such as the story of why he shorted Diana, General Nutrition, Solv-Ex, Turbodyne, and many other high-profile stocks.

Leave the old paradigm behind and start safeguarding your portfolio Short Selling with the O'Neil Disciples is a guide to optimizing investment performance by employing the unique strategies put forth by William O'Neil. The authors traded these strategies with real money, then refined them to reflect changing markets and conditions to arrive at a globally-relevant short-selling strategy that helps investors realize maximum profit. Readers will learn how short selling recognizes the life-cycle paradigm arising from an economic system that thrives on 'creative destruction,' and has been mischaracterized as an evil enterprise when it is simply a single component in smart investing and money management. This informative guide describes the crucial methods that preserve gains and offset declines in other stocks that make up a portfolio with more of an intermediate- to long-term investment horizon, and how to profit outright when markets begin to decline. Short-selling is the act of identifying a change of trend in a stock from up to down, and seeking to profit from that change by riding the stock to the downside by selling the stock while not actually owning it, with the idea of buying the stock back later at a lower price. This book describes the methods that make short-selling work in today's markets, with expert advice for optimal practice. Learn the six basic rues of short-selling Find opportunities on both the long and short sides of stocks Practice refined methods that make short-selling smarter Examine case studies that profitably embody these practices Investors able to climb out of the pessimistic, conspiratorial frame of mind that fixates on the negative will find that short selling can serve as a practical safeguard that will protect the rest of their portfolio. With clear guidance toward the techniques relevant in today's markets, Short Selling with the O'Neil Disciples is an essential read.