The short, the index, and the private markets

The GameStop story recently returned short-sellers to the front pages of the global financial press. The Reddit crowd's "Main Street takes revenge on Wall Street" narrative cast these short-sellers as the villains of the financial markets. It also created enough consensus buying pressure to squeeze their positions into margin calls and realised losses.

But my focus here is not the GameStop story. Rather, it is the necessity of both short positions and representative, investable benchmarks for private market investments.

Cash is king