Short King of the Month
The Bottom Line The crown goes to the investigator with the steepest average stock price decline across all reports they published in a given calendar month, measured from the open price on…
- The crown goes to the investigator with the steepest average stock price decline across all reports they published in a given calendar month, measured from the open price on publication day through the final close of the month. The lower the average, the better, and a single report is enough to win.
- Activ8 tracks 87 investigators and over 4,000 stocks globally. Across the full universe, fewer than half of all short reports result in a sustained decline by month-end, which is exactly why identifying consistent performers matters.
- The Short King badge is displayed live on the Activ8 Investigators page and can be used as a starting point to identify which investigators are actively producing high-impact research worth following.
Short-selling research is a fragmented industry. Dozens of firms publish reports alleging fraud, overvaluation, or governance failures at publicly traded companies. The quality of that work, and the track record behind it, varies enormously. Activ8’s Short King of the Month is a monthly, data-driven attempt to answer the question every investor following this space wants answered: whose work is actually moving markets right now?
What Is Short King of the Month?
Short King of the Month is Activ8’s monthly recognition of the investigator whose published reports produced the steepest stock-price declines during that month. It is a data-driven signal, not an editorial award. The math determines the winner.
The title is deliberately informal. But the underlying question it answers is serious: which investigator’s work is actually moving markets right now? The answer changes month to month, and the methodology rewards whoever delivered the biggest market impact that month, whether through a string of strong calls or one exceptional one.
The Investigator Landscape
Activ8 currently monitors 87 short-selling investigators worldwide, spanning household names like Muddy Waters Research and Citron Research as well as emerging firms and solo practitioners. Coverage tracks performance across more than 4,000 publicly traded stocks globally, including U.S. exchanges, European markets, and beyond.
That ~45% win rate is an important baseline. Across the full universe, fewer than half of all short reports result in a sustained stock decline by month-end, a reminder that publishing a report is not the same as being right. That is what makes investigators who consistently clear 65 to 75% genuinely notable.
How the Winner Is Determined
- The window. Only reports published within the calendar month count toward that month’s title.
- The return. Each report is measured from the stock’s open on the report day to its close on the month’s final trading day, capturing how the market absorbed the thesis over the full month, not just the day-one reaction.
Report Return= Closing Price (month-end) − Opening Price (report day) divided by Opening Price (report day)
Monthly Score= Average of all of an investigator’s report returns that month - Eligibility. Anyone who publishes at least one report qualifies. A single report can win, and for a one-report investigator, that report’s return is their score.
- Borrow check. If no shares of a reported stock were available to borrow, retail had no practical way to short it, so that report is excluded. A decline nobody could act on is not a win for the market.
- The winner. The investigator with the steepest average decline is crowned Short King for the month.
A Real Example: January 2026
The table below shows every report published in January 2026, sorted by report date, with the report-day open used as the entry point, the month-end close, and the resulting return. Hunterbrook Media was the only investigator to publish twice that month; every other contender is in the running on a single call. The overall average across all 14 reports was −14.4%.
| Investigator | Ticker | Report Date | Month-End | Open (Entry) | Close (Exit) | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMF Reports | TROO | Jan 6 | Jan 30 | $3.96 | $3.93 | −0.8% |
| Utopia Capital Research Short King | NBY | Jan 7 | Jan 30 | $36.95 | $9.30 | −74.8% |
| Pelican Way Research | ONMD | Jan 12 | Jan 30 | $1.11 | $0.76 | −31.1% |
| Shortfinder | SOC | Jan 12 | Jan 30 | $9.93 | $9.68 | −2.5% |
| The Bear Cave | ADUR | Jan 15 | Jan 30 | $13.85 | $12.98 | −6.3% |
| Capitalwatch | APP | Jan 19 | Jan 30 | $540.96 | $473.11 | −12.5% |
| Culper Research | TE | Jan 21 | Jan 30 | $8.42 | $8.33 | −1.1% |
| Kerrisdale Capital | AFRM | Jan 21 | Jan 30 | $70.54 | $60.30 | −14.5% |
| WolfPack Research | 3692.T | Jan 22 | Jan 30 | 9563.52 | 9234.09 | −3.4% |
| Snowcap Research | PAX | Jan 26 | Jan 30 | $16.45 | $14.45 | −12.2% |
| Hunterbrook Media | UI | Jan 27 | Jan 30 | $535.20 | $550.81 | +2.9% |
| Spruce Point Management | REZI | Jan 27 | Jan 30 | $34.70 | $34.26 | −1.3% |
| Gotham City Research | CVNA | Jan 28 | Jan 30 | $94.81 | $80.22 | −15.4% |
| Hunterbrook Media | RR | Jan 29 | Jan 30 | $4.99 | $3.58 | −28.3% |
| Utopia Capital Research, January Score (1 report), Short King | −74.8% | |||||
| Hunterbrook Media, January Average (2 reports) | −12.7% | |||||
| Overall January 2026, Average Across All 14 Reports | −14.4% | |||||
January 2026 report data, sorted by report date. Return = (month-end close minus report-day open) divided by report-day open. Shares of every reported stock were available to borrow, so no reports were excluded from title consideration.
Utopia Capital Research takes January outright. Its single call on NBY fell −74.8% from the report-day open to month-end, more than double the next-steepest decline, Pelican Way Research’s −31.1% on ONMD. Under the methodology, one exceptional report is enough to win, and Utopia’s margin left no contest. It is a clean illustration of the rule that a single high-impact call can outweigh a busier month: Hunterbrook Media published twice, but its −28.3% on RR was offset by a small gain on UI, leaving a −12.7% average that lands mid-pack.
Past Short Kings & Career Track Records
The monthly title highlights who is running hot right now, but it is equally important to look at how investigators perform over their full career. An investigator can win a month on the back of one exceptional call while averaging weaker results overall, and vice versa. The table below shows recent winners alongside their 2025 full-year averages for context.
| Month | Short King | Winning Avg | Reports That Month | 2025 Full-Year Avg | 2025 Win Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2025 |  Grizzly Research |
−20.3% | 2 | −4.0% | 63.6% |
| Nov 2025 | BMF Reports | −40.1% | 1 | −15.8% | 64.7% |
| Oct 2025 | WolfPack Research | −27.1% | 3 | −7.6% | 62.5% |
Recent monthly winners with their 2025 full-year averages and win rates for context.
The contrast makes the point. BMF Reports won November 2025 with a −40.1% monthly average off a single call, yet its full-year 2025 average was −15.8%. Strong, but a fraction of that one month. A winning month is a snapshot, not a track record. For deeper career-level comparisons across all 87 investigators, the Activ8 Dashboard shows full historical averages, win rates, and report counts side by side.
Where to Find the Short King
The Short King is displayed live on the Activ8 Investigators page. The current title holder is marked with a crown above their card and a SHORT KING badge, updated each month automatically as new reports are published and prices are refreshed.
The current Short King is marked with a crown above their card on the Activ8 Investigators page.
Why Investors Should Pay Attention
Short-selling research is not uniformly reliable. The monthly title is a practical filter for a real question: whose work should I read first?
- Momentum identification. An investigator winning the title in consecutive months is operating at a high-signal period. Their active reports are worth elevated scrutiny.
- Calibration against the baseline. With a ~45% average win rate across all investigators, focusing on those clearing 65 to 75% gives a meaningfully filtered starting point for follow-on research.
- Month vs. career context. Use the monthly title to spot who is running hot, then cross-reference their full career averages to assess whether the performance is structural or situational.
Full investigator rankings, monthly Short King history, win rates, and individual report breakdowns are available on the Activ8 Dashboard, updated daily as new reports are published and prices are refreshed.