May 5, 2009
I am a long term contrarian investor. I usually only buy during extreme oversold conditions. During the recent market meltdown, I kept putting in low ball limit order bids on what I thought were ridiculously underpriced stocks. By the market close, to my surprise, most of my limit orders had been filled. After several weeks of seeing the stocks that I had just bought the day before at bargain prices keep dropping, I stopped buying. When investors like me drop out of the market, the only buyers left are traders and market makers who mark the stocks down to a level where they know they can unload them a bit later on at a neat profit. Without the uptick rule, short sellers can keep piling on during market meltdown conditions knowing that there are few if any investors willing to buy. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. The uptick rule must be reinstated.