April 2026 Activist Short Selling Performance Report
Mid Caps got hammered. Large Caps held the line. One campaign drove a 55% decline in seven trading days.
April 2026
Monthly Activist Short Selling Report
April 2026 produced 16 activist short campaigns, a 63% success rate, and a -5.2% average impact. Underneath the headline numbers, the dispersion was unusually wide.
Reports
16
Avg Impact
-5.2%
Success Rate
63%
Short King of the Month
Fugazi Research takes Short King for the sixth month running.
Their call on Avis Budget Group (CAR) drove a 55% decline in seven trading days, the largest single-campaign move of the month by a wide margin. The thesis pulled directly from Avis's own filings: $25.3B in debt against negative equity, leverage at 8x EBITDA, and a buyback that concentrated ownership in a single shareholder.
Also Inside the Report
The Sportradar Twin Strike
Two firms published on the same target on the same day. Both campaigns recorded identical -21.9% impact through month end. Why coordinated publication tends to amplify, not dilute.
Mid Caps -17.9%, Large Caps +8.4%
The cleanest analytical signal of the month. Why the $2B to $10B band remains the most fertile ground for activist short research, and why the top of the cap spectrum is currently the hardest place to operate.
AI Infrastructure: Two Theses, Two Outcomes
Six reports targeted AI-adjacent companies in April. Pattern-based fraud theses landed. Citron's high-profile AAOI call did not. The implications for selecting shorts in the AI complex.
