[huijzer]

The most likely winner of such schemes are the brokers who sold two things instead of one. Buying great companies at fair prices is much easier and, in my opinion, safer. Another argument: how many short seller billionaires are there and how many long billionaires?

[HDThoreaun]

Writing options is an incredibly competitive market, margins are very tight. The quant firms writing them only work because of the massive scale, they lose almost as often as they win.