July 24, 2008
The SEC needs to carefully study the effect of its emergency order on the markets and, in particular, on shorting trends.
Liz Moyer has published in Forbes that shorting in Fannie Mae is down 90%, and in the 17 other stocks down an average of 70%.
If this is confirmed, it is extremely important-- because it strongly suggests that much of the shorting in these stocks is NOT "normal" or legal shorting, nor is it from the options market makers-- it proves that a huge amount of the shorting is from "naked" shorting by hedge funds to drive the price down.
As Liz Moyer further points out, financial institutions such as WB and NCC, left off the "list", have been subsequently heavily (naked) shorted and in fact driven onto the Reg SHO list.
If this analysis is confirmed, the SEC MUST act to extend the "borrow" rule to all stocks, and block the hedge funds from illegally depriving shareholders of billions in market value. Let them short stocks in a legal fashion but stop them from manipulating our markets to their own gain.