There are plenty of hedge funds that do this already, sometimes they put up a blog post. Sometimes they simply "talk their book". To the degree that informed in

There are plenty of hedge funds that do this already, sometimes they put up a blog post. Sometimes they simply "talk their book". To the degree that informed investors own the stock, the stock will or won't react. An example of a short thesis which the market has judged to be baseless despite the hype: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dish-network-kerrisdale-idUSKCN0XW2AY http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dish-network-kerrisdale-id... Institutional investors have held onto DISH stock since, because while Dish may not be doing great, it is not failing for the reasons Kerrisdale has pitched. The predatory sort of shorting - pumping and dumping, is most common in penny stocks or stocks heavily owned by retail investors. These "investors" don't do their own research, they don't read 10-Ks, and they believe every little thing they read on the internet. An example of a stock which has been pumped and dumped for years is ORMP: http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/ORMP http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/ORMP In the aggregate I believe that short sellers serve a useful purpose, adjusting valuations down for stocks which do not merit their current price.