However, two partners in LTCM independently pointed out to me the impossibility of making arbitrage profits from exaggerated valuations. Suppose they had been vouchsafed a little peek into the future: that they knew, with absolute certainty, that at a particular point in time the stock price of company X would be zero. Could they now, they asked me, make money with certainty from this knowledge? Their question was rhetorical; they knew the answer to be "No." Of course, they could sell the stock short. If they could hold their position until the stock price became zero, they could indeed profit handsomely. But if in the interim the price continued to rise, they could still exhaust their capital and be forced to liquidate at a loss.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 1215