Short Sellers Face End of an Era as Rookies Rule Wall Street

The latest assault on Wall Street short sellers has a long tradition, dating back to, well, at least Napoleon. “Treasonous,” he called them for betting against government securities.

They survived that and numerous other attacks over the next several centuries. But the GameStop uprising could mark the end of an era for the public short -- the long-vilified folks who try to root out corporate wrongdoing, take positions betting a stock will fall and then wage public campaigns.

Andrew Left

Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

The biggest casualty came Friday, when Andrew Left’s Citron Research said it will discontinue offering short-selling analysis after 20 years of ...