The whole situation sucks. With SKF off TradeStation's easy-to-borrow list for a few weeks I was figuring a good ride today based on short covering alone.
The SKF folks use counter-parties with swaps in order to construct the SKF. These swaps just went WAY UP in price ( with the counter-party ) because of the inability to short the financials and this is what the freaking Govt. has no clue about. Why can't they just bring back the "uptick" rule??? Absurd.
Someone posted this on yahoo ProShares Announcement 09/19 11:25 AM BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Due to the emergency action announced by the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 18, 2008, temporarily prohibiting short sales of shares of certain financial companies, Short Financials ProShares (SEF) and UltraShort Financials ProShares (SKF) are not expected to accept orders from Authorized Participants to create shares until further notice. Unless notified otherwise, shares will be available for redemption by Authorized Participants as normal. The shares of these ProShares are expected to trade in the financial markets today, but may trade at prices that are not in line with their intraday indicative values. Source: ProShares