A hedge fund strategy that maintains a net short exposure to the market through a combination of short and long positions. A dedicated short bias investment strategy attempts to capture profits when the market declines, by holding investments that are overall biased to the short side.
A dedicated short bias is a directional trading strategy that entails taking a net short position in the market, meaning that a larger proportion of the portfolio is dedicated to short positions, rather than to long positions. Being net short is the opposite of being net long; hedge funds that maintain a net long position are dedicated long bias funds. Dedicated short bias funds include instruments such as ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury, PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bearish, and Short Dow30 ProShares.
Prior to the long-term bull market for U.S. equities that took place in the 1980s and 1990s, many hedge funds used a dedicated short strategy, rather than a dedicated short bias strategy. The dedicated short strategy was one that exclusively took short positions. The dedicated short funds were virtually destroyed during the bull market; the dedicated short bias fund emerged and took a more balanced approach.