May 4, 2009
The purpose of the stock market is to allow companies to raise money by selling ownership (shares of stock) in their company. When you buy a share of stock, you are becoming an owner of the company. Unfortunately, for many people, the stock market is nothing more than pure gambling. What's worse is those people gambling tremendous sums (in hedge funds) can manipulate the markets to make tremendous amounts of money (bear raids, naked short selling) to the detriment of the companies behind the stock and general investors. I am completely in favor of reistating the uptick rule and banning naked short selling to reduce these devastating trading practices.