The 5 Best And Worst Short-Selling Activists In The Game

Alfred Little, a shop with 15 activist short campaigns under its belt, has seen the stock fall dramatically at nearly every single company its gone after. Most notably, it had short investments in three companies believed to be major business frauds, where the stock declined more than 90% after Alfred Little introduced its position. In fact, all but one of the fund's shorts had a declining stock price.

Gotham City Research knows how to pick its activist shorts. While the fund only has five activist short positions in its history, it has quite the record — it successfully decreased the stock price in each one after announcing its investment. The fund's two biggest wins have come in recent months, with Let's Gowex SA down more than 60% and Quindell PLC down nearly 73% since June.

A short activist powerhouse and vocal presence for its positions on Twitter, GeoInvesting has initiated 38 short activist campaigns, more than any hedge fund tracked by the database. And GeoInvesting seems to be good at what they do, with nearly half of its campaigns's stock declining by 90% or more.

Spruce Point Capital, run by Ben Axler out of New York, has some big wins on its books, mostly focusing on companies it believes are major business frauds. And while its most recent short campaign of Roomba manufacturer iRobot, predicated on the belief that the company's stock performance is benefitting from a bubble situation, is up 7.6% since May, all but one other of Axler's activist shorts have brought down companies' stock in a pretty significant way.

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital has made recent waves with its Herbalife short, a position Ackman has given increasingly intense presentations on. Herbalife shares have continued to climb, overshadowing Ackman's otherwise stellar short activism record. He's won big betting against MBIA, Ambac Financial, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Realty Income, earning his powerhouse hedge fund a spot in the top five.

Berry has missed on three out of four short activist investments, including Qihoo 360 Technology, which has returned a share price gain of 193% since Berry published his short in May of 2012.

All but one of this investor collective's five activist short positions has seen an increased stock price. I'd probably want to stay anonymous as well.

Pearson's focus on medical and biotechnology companies has gotten him in trouble on the short side. Out of 37 activist shorts he's announced, four have seen triple-digit growth since his announcement.

David Einhorn is one of the hedge fund industry's most revered investors, but his Greenlight Capital's activist short book is not deserving of such praise. Einhorn missed big on half of his dozen activist short plays, including Moody's, which went up 194% and McGraw-Hill, which has shot up 221% since Einhorn's announcement of his short stakes in those stocks.

This fund, with just three activist shorts, one of which saw a stock price increase of 400%, should probably just stop.