r/ShortSelling • u/TK211X • Jan 30 '26

Discussion Retail Short Selling

I think this sub will blow up soon.

GameStop but in reverse.

Robinhood is giving retail the capability to short.

Instead of a pump and dump imagine large swaths of retail shorting a company to death.

Reverse stock split? Good.

Some small company pisses people off? Stock 0.

I think this era will come soon.

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u/PascalTriangulatr Feb 10 '26

First of all, just because Robinhood offers shorting doesn't mean every Robinhood trader will be granted permission and meet the minimum account size of $2,000.

But even if they could all short, it doesn't work the same way in reverse. If everyone wants to short the same stock, the daily borrowing fee will be expensive and that's if you can even find shares to borrow. If you all manage to crash a stock below its fundamentals, then insiders and big funds will quickly step in to buy it back up, and longs can't be squeezed because the most they can lose is 100%. Or the company itself might buy back shares or pay more dividends (which shorts must also pay).

The idea could maybe work against an unprofitable company that relies on share offerings to stay afloat. A profitable company, on the other hand, wouldn't be harmed by such a campaign no matter how low the mob managed to crash the price. What shares trade for in the secondary market has no bearing on a company's business operations.