May 4, 2009
My husband and I, as an individual investors, lost a lot of our savings due to the rampant short selling that occured in the stock market last fall. We had carefully invested in what we thought were sound companies and had a comfortable level of savings. We are retired and have no means of income other than social security and investments. We can have no confidence in investing in the stock market as long as there are no restrictions for short selling. It seems that the stock market is no longer an investment but a gamble, and we do not wish to gamble. We would really appreciate a feeling that we are on equal ground with institutional investors, and we would like to feel that we are investing rather than betting. Surely regulating short selling would help the individual investors.