April 23, 2009
As a retail investor, I am sick of seeing the fundamentals of a company get trashed with a short position equal to as much as 30% or more of the outstanding shares of a company.
I am sick of having my bank loan my shares out of a cash only account.
I am sick of buying shares which may turn out to be lies, when it turns out my bank bought shares sold naked short.
Look, someone needs to say it - if the market crashes and burns because these issues of naked shorting don't get addressed, there are going to be a lot of pitchforks out there. Just stop naked shorting and you will have solved 99% of the problem. The uptick rule would have helped stop this. Shorters must prove they have the stock in hand to short.