As the brutal stock market bloodbath feeds their bearish bets, short sellers have been able to reap huge profits.

According to S3 Partners’ Ihor Dusesky data, the short-selling group has raked in $114 billion in January market-to-market profits, an increase of 11.6% over last year.

It was a severe sell-off for the New Year. The S&P 500 briefly dipped into correction territory on Monday, falling more than 10% from its record high. The biggest hit was on technology stocks, where the Nasdaq Composite fell about 12% during January. It is currently at 15% below its previous high.

A potential Federal Reserve policy change was the catalyst for stock market turmoil. Central bank signaled that interest rates could rise this year and also suggested a reduction in balance sheets and tapering asset purchases. This would be an aggressive move by the Fed to show hawkishness after almost two years of loose monetary policy that supported the economy during the pandemic.

Dusaniwsky is the managing director for predictive analytics at Dusaniwsky. “While longs are getting troubled, short sellers see widespread profitable trades during this market wide downturn with 79% all short sidemoney producing profitable returns in January.”

By anticipating the decline in securities’ value, short sellers are looking to make a profit. The short seller takes out shares of a stock, and then sells the shares to buyers that are willing to purchase them at market prices. The trader will buy the shares back at a lower price, and pocket the difference.

This year, the most profitable short-term bet was against TeslaThe e-commerce sector saw a nearly 16% drop. According to S3, short sellers who bet against electric vehicles have made $2.3 billion in mark–to-market profits since Friday.

Place bets NetflixThey have proven to be particularly profitable. After the company acknowledged that there was streaming competition, shares of this streaming giant fell by 37%. is eating into its subscriber growth.Short-sellers have seen a dramatic sell-off that has resulted in a gain of $1.6 billion.