May 4, 2009
I know that SHORT selling is supposed to provide "liquidity" to the market. In my opinion the stock market is "gaseous" already.
The rules and options available for the transections within the stock market are designed for the TRADERS to the detriment of the INVESTOR.
The market is no longer a safe place for an individual INVESTOR to put his/her money. Professional TRADERS have too many advantages over the individual investor,e.g., high speed computer trading programs (can enter up to 30,000 trades per second) high speed access to "insider" to "controled" information the ability to execute post- and pre-market trades to gain all of the big moves in the market etc. All of which allows them to control the market.
Selling of stocks SHORT without restrictions has allowed TRADERS to steal trillions of dollars from INVESTORS retirement plans.
The current rally in the stock market could just be another play by the TRADERS to get another pile of money from the INVESTOR (if they take a chance by investing now.)
SHORT selling should be strongly restricted by reinstating the up-tick rule with a serious "up" amount, such as $0.05 between shorts.
In my opinion, SHORT selling is an abomination. It has a negative impact on INVESTORS in that company, it has a negative impact on the COMPANY of the shorted stock, it misleads other INVESTORS, it even hurts the INVESTOR that "loaned" his/her stock to the TRADER.
NAKED SHORTING is illegal and should be punished to the full extent of the law.
Thank you for reading my rant ...