Best Stocks to Short — September 2026
Ranked by AltIndex AI Score · updated daily. · Last updated Sep 13, 2026
Stocks to short are companies showing signs of weakness across the data — the opposite of a healthy business. The best stocks to short usually show declining web traffic, hiring pullbacks, weakening employee business outlook, and deteriorating financial health all at the same time. The AltIndex AI Score combines 10,000+ alternative-data and financial signals to surface stocks where multiple independent signals point to the same negative story.
Top Stocks to Short ranked by AI Score
| Company | Price | Market cap | 6m trend | AI Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
KULRKULR |
$2.381.3% |
$108.8M | 17 | |
 |
NatuzziNTZ |
$1.0012.9% |
$11M | 18 | |
 |
AllbirdsBIRD |
$2.440.4% |
$21.4M | 19 | |
 |
Nauticus RoboticsKITT |
$0.661.9% |
$4.8M | 20 | |
 |
MarkforgedMKFG |
$4.740.4% |
N/A | 21 | |
 |
CaliberCosCWD |
$0.511.4% |
$5.4M | 21 | |
 |
Pineapple FinancialPAPL |
$0.950.4% |
$24M | 21 | |
 |
LightInTheBoxLITB |
$3.151.6% |
$61.2M | 22 | |
 |
ComscoreSCOR |
$4.961.2% |
$73.6M | 22 | |
 |
Plug PowerPLUG |
$2.100.5% |
$3B | 23 | |
Note: The list above is informational. This is not financial advice — always do your own research.
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Sign up →Best Stocks to Short — 6-month performance
In the last 6 months it's been a tough stretch for Best Stocks to Short Stocks. KULR -13.8%, Natuzzi -64.4%, Allbirds +13.5%, Nauticus Robotics -88.3%. The average 6-month return across these 10 tickers is -18%, with 3 of 10 in positive territory — Pineapple Financial led at +37.7%, Nauticus Robotics lagged at -88.3%.
What if you had invested 6 months ago?
Type any amount and see how an equal-weight basket of these stocks would have played out.
Equal-weight basket of the 10 tickers in this list with 6-month price history. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
How we rank the best Best Stocks to Short stocks
Every ticker on this list is ranked by the AltIndex AI Score — a proprietary 0–100 score that combines 10,000+ technical analysis, financial signals, and alternative-data (hiring trends, sentiment, web traffic, employee ratings, insider transactions, etc) into a single number, refreshed daily.
The same score runs on whole portfolios: rate my portfolio to see where your own holdings land against real member portfolios on the same 0–100 scale.
Frequently asked questions about Stocks to Short
Most major brokerages let you short common stocks through a margin account, subject to share availability ("borrow") and margin requirements. Alternatives include buying put options or inverse ETFs. This page identifies candidates; the execution side is broker-specific.
Theoretically unlimited upside loss — a stock can rise indefinitely. Short squeezes (where buying pressure forces shorts to cover at higher prices) are a real concentrated risk, especially in low-float and retail-heavy names. The AltIndex AI Score on the short side focuses on weakening fundamentals, but execution risk and timing remain your responsibility.
At the moment, Nauticus Robotics is having a strong day — up 1.9% in the last trading session.
Our price data is updated every 30 minutes to ensure you have the most recent and relevant information. The AI score, crucial for identifying shorting opportunities, is updated daily.
The 'best' stocks to short in our 'toplist' are identified based on the AI score, a dynamic metric calculated using financial data and alternative data insights. In this particularly toplist, focus lies on identifying stocks that show signs of overvaluation or underlying company struggles. To identify a company that is struggling, we analyze drop in web traffic, social media followers, job postings, sentiment, revenue, amongst other data points.
The AI score for shorting stocks is a unique metric that aggregates insights from various alternative datasets such as business outlook, webpage traffic, app downloads, and stock sentiment, with a particular focus on finding signals of companies struggling. It is calculated using advanced algorithms to analyze and weight each dataset appropriately, resulting in a score that highlights potential shorting opportunities.
To stay updated on shorting opportunities and the best stocks to short, you can sign up for stock alerts on our platform. These alerts notify you when a stock shows signs of weakness across the datasets we monitor. Members also receive our newsletter with buy and sell signals on stocks at the high and low ends of the AI Score range.
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