Jim DiFlorio Wins My 2025-2026 Short Selling Contest
Posted: September 22, 2026
September 21, 2026 (Maple Hill Syndicate) — Jim DiFlorio, a forensic scientist with the Pennsylvania state police, won my 23rd annual Short Sellers Don’t Have Horns contest. The idea of the contest is to pick a stock that will go down.
DiFlorio picked American Rebel Holdings Inc. (AREB), a Nashville, Tennessee company that makes gun safes and “concealed carry” products. When the contest began, on October 2, 2025, it sold for $20,940 a share. When the competition ended, on September 11, 2026, the price was 15 cents a share.
Rounding to the nearest hundredth, that’s a 100% decline – the short seller’s ideal.
DiFlorio says that he hasn’t tried short selling in real life, yet. Most investors never try it, because in a short sale your gain is limited to 100% while your potential loss is unlimited. (The reverse is true for regular, or “long” stock purchases.)
But DiFlorio, who had finished third in the contest a year ago, says he may try shorting with real money soon. “I seem to be able to find the big losers but not the big winners,” he says.
Danger Signals
In looking for a stock that will tank, DiFlorio has an eye out for three danger signs. One is a reverse split, in which a company lowers the number of shares each shareholder has, in order to raise the price per share.
Until recently, companies could use reverse splits to keep their stock price up and thus qualify for continued listing on Nasdaq (formerly, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation system).
The second danger sign DiFlorio looks for is high debt. And third, he looks for stocks that are already “doing badly.”
Silver Medal
Peter DiFilippo, an accountant with Bayer Corp. in Pittsburgh, who won the contest in 2017, 2018 and 2020, grabbed second place this time.
DeFilippo picked Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. (FFAI), a very small electric-car manufacturer. The stock fell 99.2%.
Electric cars were “a pretty crowded field,” DiFilippo observed when he entered the contest. “The tax credit for electric vehicles is ending, which may hurt any potential sales.”
Bronze Medal
Third place went to Glen Bowman, a history professor at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. His pick was Beyond Meat Inc. (BYND), which he characterized as “more like beyond hope.” Shares in the maker of vegetable-based meat substitutes fell 86.8% during the contest period.
“I am one of the few who actually does not dislike the product,” Bowman said, “but even I have stopped buying it.”
He noted that Beyond Meat had negative book value (corporate net worth per share), negative cash flow, and poor ratings from analysts.
Honorable Mention
Laurent Condon, a professional trader in Panazol, France, who won this contest in 2019, 2022 and 2024, had a result that was indeterminate.
Condon picked QMM Holdings Ltd, based in Hong Kong. It describes itself as a digital advertising company. To Condon, it was “another pump-and-dump Chinese stock that trades in US markets and should not.”
Shortly before the contest began, the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading in the stock. Condon expected trading to resume, but it never did. Arguably, he could be credited with a 100% return, or zero.
Condon notes that short selling has become a more dangerous game. “I have never seen so many frauds in the U.S. market, about 80% of them Chinese,” he says. Some stocks are manipulated and can jump hundreds of percent in a single day, wiping out a short seller.
Join the Contest
You can easily enter my 24th annual Short Sellers Don’t Have Horns contest.
Pick a U.S.-traded stock you think will decline significantly from the close of trading October 9, 2026 to the close on September 10, 2027. Entries must be postmarked or time-stamped by midnight October 9, 2026.
Email your entry to jdorfman@dorfmanvalue.com or mail it to John Dorfman, Dorfman Value Investments, 24 Burnside Road, Newton MA 02461.
Please include:
- Your name
- Home city
- Your occupation
- Phone number, including night or weekend number
- Name and stock symbol of the stock you think will bomb.
- A brief statement of the reason you expect the stock to fall.
You are not required to sell the stock short with real money, but you may if you wish.
The first-place finisher gets a prize related to the word “short.” Past prizes have included music by pianist Bobby Short, a strawberry shortcake, and a book of short stories. Second and third place carry no prize but glory.
Disclosure: I have no positions, long or short, for myself or clients, in the stocks discussed today.
John Dorfman is chairman of Dorfman Value Investments in Newton, Massachusetts. His firm or clients may own or trade the stocks discussed here. He can be reached at jdorfman@dorfmanvalue.com.