Can I profit from anticipating a drop in value?
To summarize, there are three basic ways: (3) is the truly dangerous one. If there is a lot of short interest in a stock, but for some reason the stock goes up, suddenly a lot of people will be scrambling to buy that stock to cover their short position -- which will drive the price up even further, making the problem worse.  Pretty soon, a bunch of smart rich guys will be poor guys who are suddenly very aware that they aren't as smart as they thought they were.  Eight years ago, such a "short squeeze", as it's called, made the price of VW quadruple in two days.  You could hear the Heinies howl from Hamburg to Haldenwanger. There are ways to protect yourself, of course.  You can go short but also buy a call at a much higher price, thereby limiting your exposure, a strategy called a "straddle", but you also reduce your profit if you guessed right. It comes down to, as it always does, do you want to eat well, or to sleep well?