New York (HedgeCo.net) – Being famous for short selling stocks can be a tough game, especially when the market as a whole has been moving higher for over six years. Bill Ackman made a name for himself as a short seller and his very public battle with Herbalife, but now he seems to be questioning his own sanity.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Ackman stated that he would he would “have to think very, very hard before another public short,” adding, “it’s not worth the brain damage.” He went on to add that short selling can be “an incredibly lonely proposition.”

Yet another notorious short seller has added a long-only fund to his family of funds. Jim Chanos is the founder and president of Kynikos Associates and his funds are well known for capitalizing on stocks that are moving down. His most famous short sell was Enron. Now the tables have turned and Chanos is trying to capitalize on stocks that are moving higher.

Short-only and short-biased hedge funds have had a rough go of it during this extended bull market with the S&P not experiencing a down year since 2008. As a result, these types of funds saw $1.3 billion in outflows in 2014 according the research firm Hedge Fund Research.

Rick Pendergraft
Research Analyst
HedgeCoVest