Investing
Shorting Is All the Rage for Retail Investors as Stocks Plunge
After a brutal few months, small-time traders have been trying to recoup losses by betting against the market.
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Retail investors, who helped push stocks to all-time highs, are now trying a different tactic: Betting against the market.
From January to August this year, even before the most recent slump in stocks, the number of newly opened short positions on trading platform eToro was 61% higher than in 2021 and 41% higher than in 2020. Meanwhile, some of the biggest US exchange-traded funds that bet against popular indices are raking in record amounts of cash.