Over the course of 2020, U.S. short sellers generated a net profits of around 1.28 billion U.S. dollars from short selling Exxon Mobil stock. While a very large number, this pales in comparison to the net annual losses of from short selling of over 40 billion U.S. dollars for Tesla stock. Short selling is a process whereby investors effectively borrow a certain number of shares for a period of time, with the aim of selling them when the price is high, then repurchasing at a lower price in order to return them.

As of June 17, 2024, the most shorted stock was for, the American holographic technology services provider, MicroCloud Hologram Inc., with 66.64 percent of their total float having been shorted. This is a change from mid-January 2021, when video game retailed GameStop had an incredible 121.07 percent of their available shares in a short position. In effect this means that investors had 'borrowed' more shares (with a future promise to return them) than the total number of shares available for public trading. Owing to this behavior of professional investors, retail investors enacted a campaign to drive up the stock price of Gamestop, leading to losses of billions when investors had to repurchase the stock they had borrowed. At this time, a similar – but less effective – social media campaign was also carried out for the stock price of cinema operator AMC, and the price of silver. What is short selling? Short selling is essentially where an investor bets on a share price falling by: borrowing a number of shares selling these shares while the price is still high; purchasing the same number again once the price falls; then returning the borrowed shares at a profit. Of course, a profit will only be made if the share price does fall; should the share price rise the investor will then need to purchase the shares back at a higher price, and thus incur a loss. Short selling can lead to some very large profits in a short amount of time, with Tesla stock generating over one billion dollars in short sell profits during the first week of March 2020 alone, owing to the financial crash caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, owing to the short-term, opportunistic nature of short selling, these returns look less impressive when considered as net profits from short sell positions over the full year. The risks of short selling Short selling carries greater risks than traditional investments, and for this reason financial advisors often recommend against this strategy for ‘retail’ (i.e. non-professional) investors. The reason for this is that losses from short selling are potentially uncapped, whereas losses from traditional investments are limited to the initial cost. For example, if someone purchases 100 dollars of shares, the maximum they can lose is the 100 dollars the spent on those shares. However, say someone borrows 100 dollars of shares instead, betting on the price falling. If these shares are then sold for 100 dollars but the price subsequently rises, the losses could greatly exceed the initial investment should the price rise to, say, 500 dollars. The risks of short selling can be seen by looking again at Tesla, with the company causing the greatest losses over 2020 from short selling at over 40 billion U.S. dollars.

In just *** week in March 2020, investors with a short position on Tesla stock were able to generate profits of over *** billion U.S. dollars. From around mid-February 2020, the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sent global stock markets into a tailspin as entire countries closed down their economy in order to slow the spread of the virus. While the effect on financial markets was catastrophic for many most investors, once class of investor was able to profit handsomely off the disaster - short sellers. Short selling is a process whereby investors effectively borrow a certain number of shares for a period of time, with the aim of selling them when the price is high, then repurchasing at a lower price in order to return them.

Over the course of 2020, U.S. short sellers lost over 40 billion U.S. dollars to shorts of Tesla - a value significantly higher than other companies. While short selling can generate some very large profits in a small amount of time, the practice can also lead to some very large losses should stock prices rise, confounding investors' expectations. Short selling is a process whereby investors effectively borrow a certain number of shares for a period of time, with the aim of selling them when the price is high, then repurchasing at a lower price in order to return them.

Stocks of video game retailer GameStop exploded in January 2021, effectively doubling in value on a daily basis. At the close of trading on January 27, GameStop Corporation's stock price reaching 86.88 U.S. dollars per share - or +134 percent compared to the day before. On December 30, 2020, the price was valued at 4.82 U.S. dollars per share. The cause of this dramatic increase is a concerted effort via social media to raise the value of the company's stock, intended to negatively affect professional investors planning to ‘short sell’ GameStop shares. As professional investors started moving away from GameStop the stock price began to fall, stabilizing at around 11-13 U.S. dollars in mid-February. However, stock prices unexpectedly doubled again on February 24, and continued to rise, reaching 66.25 U.S. dollars at the close of trade on March 10. The reasons for this second increase are not fully clear. At the close of trade on January 29, 2025, GameStop shares were trading at nearly 27.5 U.S. dollars. Who are GameStop? GameStop are a retailer of video games and associated merchandise headquartered in a suburbs of Dallas, Texas, but with stores throughout North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. As of February 2020 the group maintained just over 5,500 stores, variously under the GameStop, EB Games, ThinkGeek, and Micromania-Zing brands. The company's main revenue source in 2020 was hardware and accessories - a change from 2019, when software sales were the main source of revenue. While the company saw success in the decade up to 2016 (owing to the constant growth of the video game industry), GameStop experienced declining sales since because consumers increasingly purchased video games digitally. It is this continual decline, combined with the effect of the global coronavirus pandemic on traditional retail outlets, that led many institutional investors to see GameStop as a good opportunity for short selling. What is short selling? Short selling is where an investor effectively bets on a the price of a financial asset falling. To do this, an investor borrows shares (or some other asset) via an agreement that the same number of shares be returned at a future date. They can then sell the borrowed shares, and purchase the same number back once the price has fallen to make a profit. Obviously, this strategy only works when the share price does fall – otherwise the borrowed stocks need to be repurchased at a higher price, causing a loss. In the case of GameStop, a deliberate campaign was arranged via social media (particularly Reddit) for individuals to purchase GameStop shares, thus driving the price higher. As a result, some estimates place the loss to institutional investors in January 2021 alone at around 20 billion U.S. dollars. However, once many of these investors had 'closed out' their position by returning the shares they borrowed, demand for GameStop stock fell, leading to the price reduction seen early in early February. A similar dynamic was seen at the same time with the share price of U.S. cinema operator AMC.

The growing trend of interdependence between the international stock markets indicated the amalgamation of risk across borders that plays a significant role in portfolio diversification by selecting different assets from the financial markets and is also helpful for making extensive economic policy for the economies. By applying different methodologies, this study undertakes the volatility analysis of the emerging and OECD economies and analyzes the co-movement pattern between them. Moreover, with that motive, using the wavelet approach, we provide strong evidence of the short and long-run risk transfer over different time domains from Malaysia to its trading partners. Our findings show that during the Asian financial crisis (1997–98), Malaysia had short- and long-term relationships with China, Germany, Japan, Singapore, the UK, and Indonesia due to both high and low-frequency domains. Meanwhile, after the Global financial crisis (2008–09), it is being observed that Malaysia has long-term and short-term synchronization with emerging (China, India, Indonesia), OECD (Germany, France, USA, UK, Japan, Singapore) stock markets but Pakistan has the low level of co-movement with Malaysian stock market during the global financial crisis (2008–09). Moreover, it is being seen that Malaysia has short-term at both high and low-frequency co-movement with all the emerging and OECD economies except Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia during the COVID-19 period (2020–21). Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia have long-term synchronization relationships with the Malaysian stock market at high and low frequencies during COVID-19. While in a leading-lagging relationship, Malaysia’s stock market risk has both leading and lagging behavior with its trading partners’ stock market risk in the selected period; this behavior changes based on the different trade and investment flow factors. Moreover, DCC-GARCH findings shows that Malaysian market has both short term and long-term synchronization with trading partners except USA. Conspicuously, the integration pattern seems that the cooperation development between stock markets matters rather than the regional proximity in driving the cointegration. The study findings have significant implications for investors, governments, and policymakers around the globe.

In 2024, ** percent of adults in the United States invested in the stock market. This figure has remained steady over the last few years, and is still below the levels before the Great Recession, when it peaked in 2007 at ** percent. What is the stock market? The stock market can be defined as a group of stock exchanges, where investors can buy shares in a publicly traded company. In more recent years, it is estimated an increasing number of Americans are using neobrokers, making stock trading more accessible to investors. Other investments A significant number of people think stocks and bonds are the safest investments, while others point to real estate, gold, bonds, or a savings account. Since witnessing the significant one-day losses in the stock market during the Financial Crisis, many investors were turning towards these alternatives in hopes for more stability, particularly for investments with longer maturities. This could explain the decrease in this statistic since 2007. Nevertheless, some speculators enjoy chasing the short-run fluctuations, and others see value in choosing particular stocks.

The 2020 recession did not follow the trend of previous recessions in the United States because only six months elapsed between the yield curve inversion and the 2020 recession. Over the last five decades, 12 months, on average, has elapsed between the initial yield curve inversion and the beginning of a recession in the United States. For instance, the yield curve inverted initially in January 2006, which was 22 months before the start of the 2008 recession. A yield curve inversion refers to the event where short-term Treasury bonds, such as one or three month bonds, have higher yields than longer term bonds, such as three or five year bonds. This is unusual, because long-term investments typically have higher yields than short-term ones in order to reward investors for taking on the extra risk of longer term investments. Monthly updates on the Treasury yield curve can be seen here.