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◈ BOOK REVIEW · INVESTING

Sold short

Name: Sold short
Author: Manuel P Asensio

by Manuel P Asensio

Who this is for

For investors interested in short-selling methodology and the forensic due diligence approach that distinguishes serious short-side research from momentum trading — useful as market history and analytical framework, with the polemic dimension read critically rather than taken at face value.

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◈ KEY TAKEAWAYS

What this book actually teaches

01Short sellers who publish critical research perform a market surveillance function — exposing fraudulent disclosures and promotional overstatement — that benefits ordinary investors even as it creates adversarial relationships with the companies targeted.
02Asensio's research methodology is forensic: intensive analysis of SEC filings, clinical or technical claims against verifiable data, supply chain relationships, and promotional materials — a framework that translates beyond the specific 1990s cases to current markets.
03The book is a polemic as much as a memoir; Asensio's account of his own campaigns is self-favorable and should be cross-referenced against contemporaneous reporting before treating his version of disputed facts as definitive.
04The regulatory sections argue that short-selling rules were being weaponized by fraudulent promoters against legitimate short-side research — a forcefully argued but one-sided account that does not engage with regulators' legitimate concerns about market manipulation.
05The specific 1990s companies are historical; the value for contemporary readers is in the forensic due diligence methodology and the account of how promotional fraud presents in public markets, not in the specific targets.

◈ THE SUMMARY

What's in this book

Scored against ClearValue's published methodology · Jun 28, 2026

Sold Short: Uncovering Deception in the Markets (2001) by Manuel P. Asensio is a first-person account of Asensio's career as a short seller — one of the most visible and controversial practitioners of that strategy in the 1990s. Asensio ran Asensio & Company, a New York brokerage that specialized in publishing critical research reports on companies he believed were fraudulent or fundamentally overvalued, and then taking short positions on those companies. The book documents his most prominent short campaigns in detail, arguing that short sellers perform an underappreciated market surveillance function that benefits ordinary investors by exposing fraudulent and misleading corporate disclosures.

The book's most detailed case studies involve several high-profile 1990s controversies: Hemispherx Biopharma, Diana Corporation, and other companies whose promotional claims Asensio argued were either fraudulent or not supported by their financial fundamentals. Asensio's research methodology — intensive forensic analysis of SEC filings, clinical trial data, supply chain relationships, and promotional materials — is described in enough detail that readers can extract a framework for the kind of skeptical, document-intensive due diligence that distinguishes serious short sellers from momentum traders.

The book is also a polemic. Asensio is engaged in active disputes with the companies he has shorted, with NASD regulators he believes failed to act on clear evidence of fraud, and with the financial press he argues too readily amplified corporate promotional narratives. The polemical quality makes the book more interesting to read but harder to evaluate objectively. Asensio's account of his own campaigns is self-favorable in ways that a reader should cross-reference against contemporaneous sources.

The regulatory sections document Asensio's view that naked short selling regulations and securities law were being used by fraudulent promoters to silence short-side research rather than to protect legitimate companies. These arguments are presented forcefully but one-sidedly — Asensio does not engage seriously with the legitimate concerns about naked short selling and market manipulation that regulators were also navigating.

For contemporary readers, the specific companies and campaigns are historical. Several of the frauds Asensio identified were subsequently validated by regulatory action; others remained disputed. The research methodology — the forensic reading of filings, the cross-referencing of promotional claims against verifiable facts — translates to current markets even as the specific targets have changed.

For investors interested in the intellectual framework of short selling and in a practitioner's account of how forensic due diligence exposes promotional fraud, Sold Short is one of the more detailed first-person accounts available. Its value is in the methodology and the market history, not as a balanced analysis of the short-selling regulatory debate.

Summary as of June 28, 2026AI-assisted summary.