Sandler Capital Management had a difficult 2013, with the gains they made on long positions getting dragged down by the pummeling the fund took on its short positions. Managing director Andrew Sandler blames qualitative easing and the high liquidity environment for protecting declining companies with slow growth from short sellers. Sandler welcomes tapering “with open arms” and says that the end of multiple expansion will force the market to start differentiating between stocks again. “After roughly an 18-month period of negative alpha generation from stock selection, our longs have outperformed our shorts by a 2-to-1 margin over the last two…