上周的交付alpha会议充满了令人印象深刻的扬声器，活泼的投资聊天，洞察力宏观前景甚至是一个公平的喜剧。但是，对于对冲基金会议而言，由机构投资者和CNBC举办的活动 - 在一个传统主食中短暂：卖空思想。亚博赞助欧冠（阅读更多：最新从第三届年度提供阿尔法会议）
另外保存为吉姆吉姆CHANOS对缩短建筑 - 设备制造商Caterpillar和Richard Perry对日本企业债券的谴责，这一天对于缺乏对投资者可以盈利卖出的建议是值得注意的。
In fact, Carl Icahn spiced up one of the day’s most-popular sessions by taking verbal swipes at Chanos and another prominent short-seller, William Ackman.
“我喜欢香奈儿。我觉得他是一个聪明的家伙，但我认为他没有得到很多事情，“Icahn Enterprises的创始人和负责人在坦率的采访中表示。“我的意思是，你知道，看看他短缺的一些股票，他们走了起来。”
至于Ackman，Icahn一直从事与康诵的Squale Capital Management Boss开放的仇恨，这是Ackman品牌庞氏计划并大规模短缺的营养补充剂提供商。icahn购买了该股，正如他指出交付阿尔法观众，他目前正在贸易的获胜方面。“我喜欢Ackman，”他说。“任何让我一亿十亿美元的人，我喜欢。”（短卖家注意事项：如果Carl Icahn说他喜欢你，请检查你的口袋。）
在一个充满了对冲基金行业的一些顶级思想家的会议上，Chanos和Perry是自阿尔弗雷德温德洛琼斯的日子以来一直提供对对冲基金核心核心的策略的想法的经理。他在他的A.W上设置了1949年的对冲基金的模板。Jones＆Co。推出了一项基金，耦合长头寸，短头寸以减轻与股权投资相关的风险。五十年后，约翰保尔森制造了数十亿，并通过短次抵押贷款证券成为家喻户晓的名字。（阅读更多：In Speaking Out, John Paulson Decides a Good Defense Is a Good Offense）
然而，Paulson等大短裤在Postcrisis岁之间是几乎没有。事实上，信息服务公司Markit的研究总监Will Duff Gordon表示，缩短的总体使用迟交了，这是追踪日常证券贷款和借贷数据的研究总监。
“大型敞篷车[套利]股票的资金，因为他们漫长的敞篷债券有点干涸，因为他们无法获得他们所要求的杠杆，”达夫·戈登说，他们要求交易值得。“另一个大块是事件驱动的，或风险套利，合并套利对冲基金，而且他们在信贷紧缩以来有一段困难的时刻，因为没有较少的并购，少数人才能养成牙齿。但是，合并ARB市场存在生命迹象，我们希望看到这一策略开始回到深处。“
The Volcker rule has taken its toll on short positions as well. Shorting was a popular tactic employed by big banks’ proprietary trading desks, which the still-unfinished rule has largely disbanded.
That leaves the directional trade made by equity long/short funds. “How much short-selling does your typical long-short fund do?” says Duff Gordon. “The answer is not as much as you might think.”
For these managers, broader problems persist. Market movements are driven as much by the Federal Reserve Board’s quantitative easing policies, which have driven down interest rates and sent investors searching far and wide for higher yields, as they are by the fundamentals of a given company or security. The conference was rife with complaints that the Fed’s policies were distorting markets and making it harder to generate alpha.
“The market is totally losing any ability to get any insight into what the right rate is if you’ve got some gorilla in there buying the living daylights out of it and distorting the market,” said Michael Hintze of London-based hedge fund CQS.
为了真正看看短款逐渐减少，让我们去数字。（点击图表放大。）
The Markit chart above measures the evolution of the long-short ratio on U.S. stocks over the past five years. On July 24, 2008, there were 6.65 long positions for every short position. Today, that ratio has ballooned to 14.49-to-1. The stock market’s recent climb has raised the aggregate value of long positions to more than $4.78 trillion, while the value of short positions has remained stagnant at about $330 billion, substantially below precrisis levels.
过去几年成功了。Carson Block，投资研究公司泥泞的泥泞，在他们关于商业森林种植园公司的报告后，中森派出中国公司的股票翻滚，约翰保尔森占据了长期职位的贸易。
Ackman’s much-publicized Herbalife short, which friend and rival-manager Daniel Loeb of Third Point went long on, like Icahn, is still playing out. Since December 20, when Ackman announced his position, the stock has gained 75 percent.
Icahn可能有自己的原因，将Ackman和Chanos在特定的短头寸上，例如康宝莱和惠普公司，但他也可能已经对本领域的状态进行了精明的评论。
“Short-selling is difficult, competitive, you pay to borrow, you have infinite downside,” says Duff Gordon. “It’s not been easy.”