Ok, but who owns them? If the investors are some hedge/mutual funds that invested significant (more than, say, 5%) share of their total capital in Uber or Lyft then you probably can short those funds instead.
sure you can, but lyft is very likely already written off. meaning you can short the fund (probably not because those funds are private, as well) but the lyft losses are already priced into their "stock price".
edit: maybe its more obvious in a different industry: assuming a hurricane wrecks florida. now you want to profit from shorting that event, so you short disaster insurance providers because you know they will have to pay for the damages. but the public market was faster. the losses are already priced into the stock, although those losses havent been realized yet. you can short it all you want, but you will be "too late" with your "unique insight".
mamon|9 years ago
wayn3|9 years ago
edit: maybe its more obvious in a different industry: assuming a hurricane wrecks florida. now you want to profit from shorting that event, so you short disaster insurance providers because you know they will have to pay for the damages. but the public market was faster. the losses are already priced into the stock, although those losses havent been realized yet. you can short it all you want, but you will be "too late" with your "unique insight".