short selling most energy stocks has been a losing bet for the past year and a half even companies that loaded up on debt to get through the pandemic have been rescued by the rise in oil and gas prices so wagers against “problem” operators were likely to fail that may be one reason why short sellers are shying away from oil and gas producers now in the middle of 2020 with oil prices down below 40 13 of the float of the average producer was shorted according to mkm partners analyst john gerdes as of this month only 4 of the shares available for trading by the public were shorted