Short Position

4th-level Finance & Cost-Cutting

Casting Time: 1 action, though the position must be held for 1d6 months before it can be closed
Range/Area: Unlimited; one publicly traded organization you can identify as a competitor
Components: V, S, M (borrowed shares, consumed; a thesis document, not consumed)
Duration: Until the position is closed
Classes: Fund Manager, Analyst

Choose a rival, publicly traded organization. You bet against its stock price directly. At the end of the duration, the target must succeed on a Solvency saving throw — checked against whether its Runway ran out, its Blamelessness score cratered following a public Root Cause Analysis, or any other Insolvent-adjacent event occurred during the duration. If it fails, you gain a Windfall equal to the damage the target took. If it succeeds, you instead take damage equal to the position’s original cost, and the target gains a Windfall of its own.

This spell rewards being correct about a rival’s weakness and punishes being wrong about it in equal, opposite measure; there is no partial credit.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 5th level or higher, you may publicly announce the position at the time of casting (a Short Report), which itself functions as a Smear Campaign against the target for the duration.

Flavor: “We believe the market has significantly mispriced the risk here.” — thesis document, page 1