No, you're just working very hard to miss the point. Nobody can place the pessimistic bet, unless there is someone equally optimistic in the other direction. The fact that you're fixated on the price varying as each side attempts to do the best it can is just a commitment to a narrative, not a useful insight.

Here's the simple way to know you're wrong. The stock price isn't zero. That means there people willing (at some price) to put their money where their mouth is, that the people betting against the stock at that price are wrong.

But at that point they're both just making bets.. all it says is that there are an equal number of dollars willing to gamble at that price point. It says nothing about which side of the gamble will win.

Shorts don't exist in a vacuum. They literally can't be made, unless there was someone in the market who thinks that at the short price, the stock is a good investment opportunity. Every trade is proof that the market thinks the stock is a good investment at that price. I don't know why you have such a hard time facing up to that fact, even after you admit it is one.

> No, you're working very hard to miss the point.

It seems the opposite is true here.

> [Shorts] literally can't be made, unless there was someone in the market who thinks that at the short price, the stock is a good investment opportunity. Every trade is proof that the market thinks the stock is a good investment at that price.

Again, this isn't true. The spot price has to decrease from the point where short-selling is happening for there to be a willing buyer, unless there is a new bid. Yes, transactions happen at one singular price, but if you're only saying that every seller has a buyer and every buyer has a seller, then the guy that you replied to is correct. What you're essentially saying is that "every gallon of milk is sold to a person". This is not useful information.