Short-selling, or betting against the market -- and doubling or tripling your bet with leverage -- has been the best way to make money in 2009. But the risks are just as outsized.
After the only bear market in U.S. history worse than this one -- the one that ended in 1932 -- were dragged before Congress and pilloried for being short the stock market.
Betting that stocks would go down was considered un-American.
Actually, it's not. Kennedy used some of his proceeds to buy the White House for his beamish boy, JFK, a deeply patriotic act.
Today, shorting is still controversial. It's also considerably easier to do.
Scores of exchange-traded funds and a handful of mutual funds allow you to bet easily against virtually every asset class. You can also leverage those bets with funds designed to go up $2 whenever the asset you're shorting goes down $1.
Not enough for you? As of late last year, you can buy short ETFs that reward you 3-1 when the market declines.
These bets are very profitable right now. No fewer than four leveraged short ETFs have more than doubled already this year, and one has nearly tripled. That explains why one or two of these funds can now usually be found among the list of the market's most active equities -- a sign that more and more everyday investors are using them.