May 6, 2009
Not one person or institution who is in favor of keeping in place the current short selling rules (or lack of complete enforcement of the existing rules) has offered any evidence to support their case. If there were any purported benefits to naked shorting and bear raids for no real reason other than a collective attack would we not have some evidence of it? The so called "studies" used and abused to remove the uptick rule were not done properly and offered no evidence of harm to the market if the rule remained in place. There was NEVER any evidence of market benefit to removing the rule. If you EVER want to have ANY credibility in this country you owe it to the taxpayers of America who pay all of your sorry salaries, to protect them from the gamers of the short selling. Elimination of all Short ETF's must be part of this package as well. None of them offer market behavior that even follows the actions of short selling itself. Except for the owners and managers of these funds, not one investor benefits from them. Please restore integrity to the market by removing naked shorting, short ETF's from existence, and reinstating the uptick rule. Please give us a reason to trust the integrity of this nation once more. Americans deserve it.
Roger Hagen