Does anyone have any insight as to whether or not the pilot program that allows shorting on a downtick will end on April 30, 2006, or will it be extended indefinitely?
Personally, I think the market needs to go through some sort of short term shock....sell off.....to see what would really happen to any of these stocks. Will they free fall because of relentless short selling? How will they behave? So if there is no major sell off before the pilot program is done, I think they will extend it. Just my two cents.
I have heard from securities lawyers who worked at SEC that no decision has been made. Personally, i can't see anything changing
Unless there was an obvious manipulation of the A and B stocks relative to the C stocks so far, I doubt there will be any change until the trial period is almost over. That's the point of a long trial - to find statistical evidence to support what many have said all along - the uptick rule is unnecessary. My bet is that, at the end of the trial period, the uptick rule will be completely removed, at least for the liquid big-cap stocks.
as mentioned previously, unless some catastrophic event happens, which causes all the SHO stocks to get creamed. most likely the uptick rule will be removed from most, if not all, NYSE stocks.