Where ever you read a report on trying to curtail the gang bang shorting that is going on, you get stuff about how the shorts didn't buy the bad paper, the shorts didn't get them into this mess, etc. Morons, imbeciles, dweebs, we know this. We know this better than you. Because the situation was self inflicted then its ok to go on a rampage? That's like saying its ok to rape a hooker. In this climate , there simply is not enough natural buying to BALANCE THE DELUGE OF MARGINED SHORTING. Read that again, so you get it. These stocks are being banged to death because there's not enough money in the world or people to stand in the way. Why should they step in front of a bullet? If you inject enough fear , just about any stock that depends on its IMAGE to sustain its business can be driven down to nothing. It goes down because its going down. I really think they should ban NEW short selling on these financials until things settle down. It is serving no purpose at all. If you are long and want to get out you can sell. No one will stop you. But bets against? It's not a god given right. We would all be better off if these large brokers and banks could find a way to not go out of business. If its inevitable, then let it happen without knives being stuck in their backs to hasten the process.
When stocks get cheap enough, people will buy them, unless they have a lack of transparency regarding their books, assets, etc. If they can't provide transparency, there is most likely a problem. BSC and IndyMac both deserved to be taken out. Do you disagree with that? They both were infected with cancer, and could not provide satisfactory answers to investors or the public when they had the chance, to resolve doubts about the very serious structural problems they had, up until their demise, hidden. If shorting is the means to take out sickly and infected entities from the market, so be it. 'Nature red in tooth and claw.'
Yeah, that was my best. Ultimately, I read your rant as two things: a call for more rules and regulation (which begs the question why follow and be in markets in the first place) and a valuation issue (stock777 seems to have a better idea of overall market value than most others at the moment).
remember the market can have no bids and no volume so shorting in the market cannot happen. if the shorts are wrong they just buy it back. more often than not there are fundamental reason for the decline in share price. companies don't go bankrupt because shorts are shorting it. i can name a dozen companies that went chapter 11 from fundamental reasons other than shorting. BTW, the gov't can ban trading of futures, and ban daytrading and even trading and make 80% margins. and tax you at 50% tax rate...unbelievable what the gov't can do and FED can print money.
I'm gonna prove you are wrong with your own words. If we had more rules and regulations we would NOT BE IN THIS MANURE PILE TO BEGIN WITH!! Case Closed.
For whatever reason, short selling is always stigmatized as "wrong" but the point of trading is to make money. I understand that the arguments to defend the recent short selling is specious at best but the argument that the absence of buying should be honored by holding back the shorts is just as weak. It's the law of supply and demand in action. No one wants to catch a falling knife and if there was real value in these stocks then the shorts would be crushed in a hearbeat. If you want to argue fundamentals, how can anyone value a financial company that has virtually illiquid assets that cannot be valued at current market value? That's why Bear Stearns was offered $2/share that weekend. Shorts are the yang to the yin. Accept it. Do you want to banish put options and keep call options as the only "game in town"? Why stop at shorts? Do you want to kill the derivative markets because of speculation? These companies are public companies meaning that instead of debt in terms of bonds, they issued common stock which has always been susceptible to shorting. Otherwise, it's just the glorified Ponzi a.k.a. the Greater Fool theory, i.e. who's a greater fool to buy the stock at a higher price. Do you think that we can pass ALL debt and equity to sovereign wealth funds and foreign interests to support these prices? Eventually, the last one is left holding the bag with nothing to show fo it. But not all of the financials have been crushed. Goldman has been hurt somewhat in terms of stock price but kept its head above water. In fact, until a few years ago, was a PRIVATE company, proof that you don't NEED to go public to be successful. I think the decision was put to a company vote as opposed to the underlying NEED. As a result, you have their creme-de-la-creme serving public office since (another topic but Paulson, Corzine, Cox and technically speaking Thain when he was with NYSE, I'm sure I'm missing other folks) We could all bash heads and gnash teeth about this issue but the markets has been always about risk. The issue that concerns me most is that the financials might get bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer while our neighbors down the block might have to leave due to foreclosure with no help in sight. In the end, the "shorts" exist for a reason. POT, GOOG, AAPL, RIMM, MOS are all high-flying stocks and I'm sure there exists some short interest but shorters don't short indiscriminately. These companies are red-hot and "shorters" know caveat emptor when treading here. It wouldn't take long to blow up an account any minute trying to short these stocks. By the way, how can you justify the valuations of the stocks that I just mentioned? I don't claim to know the fundamentals but I'm sure their P/E ratios are ridiculous but obviously the prices are being supported because the sellers aren't there. Should we abate buying these stocks because of the dearth of sellers? I doubt that I can convince you that there's nothing wrong with shorting but I don't know how you can explain how stocks go up. Like I said earlier, if there was value (like that "analyst" that valued LEH @ $31 {I think that was the target} last week) the shorts would've been squeezed and squeezed hard but short traders saw right through it. Value is value... BUD got a better offer from $65 to $70 per share and ROH got bought out for 70+% premium to their previous day's stock price in THIS MARKET ENVIRONMENT. To address the recent news on Naked Shorting, the SEC has always deemed it illegal but chooses now to enforce it? What were they doing when OSTK was trying to plead with the SEC on this matter a few years ago? Sorry friend, but it appears that you NEED shorts to keep things in balance. Even re-instituting the uptick rule makes no sense. If that were the case, please let people "short" gasoline prices at the pump everytime the damn prices go up. ;^)
My position is: If you can't defend your public company against short raids and rumor mongering then why the hell are you a public company in the first place? Can't take the heat get the heck out of the kitchen.