Instead of learning about short selling from famous long-only investors who don't specialise in short selling and have no particular skills in the area, another

Instead of learning about short selling from famous long-only investors who don't specialise in short selling and have no particular skills in the area, another idea is to learn about short selling from people who have done it successfully & have built a long career around it. E.g. consider Jim Chanos & Kynikos Associates. Chanos founded Kynikos in 1985. Kynikos has a short-only fund, a long-short fund and a 190% long/90% short fund (i.e. a +100% net long fund). This FT alphaville interview with Chanos: https://www.ft.com/content/da70b2f9-3a0b-4258-9996-86dfd68029ed https://www.ft.com/content/da70b2f9-3a0b-4258-9996-86dfd6802... contains a few interesting morsels of information -- including some touching on risk management & the risks that short sellers are exposed to in periods of market instability where there is a risk that counterparties might go bankrupt, e.g. during the GFC. * "I've seen far more stocks go to zero than to infinity" * "short selling is a portfolio [...] no one position will ever be more than 3 or 4% of the portfolio" * "if you go into one of our partnerships, as a limited partner, you can only lose what you put in" * "the short side has a lot of asymmetries: [...] if a position goes for you, it becomes smaller, unlike on the long side" * "if you gave me $100 and I just had a one stock portfolio on the short side, you wouldn't have to give me any more money and if I shorted Enron $100 and continued to short it on the way down, I could make more than 100%. I'll let you think that through"