Short-selling faces clampdown by SEC

The Financial Times has this article:

Short-selling faces clampdown by SEC
By John Labate in New York
Published: February 19 2003 22:02 |

Here is a quote:
"US regulators say they are being pressed to clamp down on short-selling by politicians who complain the practice hurts companies"

 

Holy, shit.....that is going to make it almost impossible to make a living in this bear market......I have been shorting so much lately, I will have to learn how to go long!

 

You can still buy put options and short futures. Shorting e-mini S&P 500 contracts is awesome. So much leverage, I go in and out on 100 lots on position trades, the liquidity is soooo nice. You don't move the market even if you do some really leveraged trades.

 

what up with upticks anyhow

 

Who knows? The SEC might stop that too!

 

no uptick rules in the 4X markets

 

This is fairly depressing. It wasn't short sellers who underwrote toxic waste IPO's, who set up phony offbooks partnerships, who stole the shareholders money with obscene options grants, or in some cases just stole the money directly. It wasn't shortsellers who bailed out every third world dictatorship, corrupt socialist regime and out of control hedge fund and all the big banks that lent to them. Blaming shorts is a lot easier than addressing the real issues, prosecuting some people other than 17 year old kids with a website and having the guts to shut down corrupt investment banks and brokers.

But hey, we wouldn't want to upset the markets. Just round up the usual suspects.

 

The SEC sucks, why can't they get their act together like the CFTC?

 

Politicians are always looking for a scapegoat. It's funny how no one complained about how speculators drove prices up to ridiculously overvalued levels 3 years ago. That's the primary cause of this bear market.

 

Bob, I highly doubt that the SEC will stop allowing you to buy put options and sell futures contracts. Futures are designed to hedge, not originally intended for speculation. If the SEC disallowed insitutions to short sell futures, the entire banking system could go under.

You see, if bad stuff happens, and the stock market crashes, and the government stops short selling, the market will still go down. People will still want to get rid of their stocks.