August 30, 2009
Never forget what happened during the Chris Cox short ban in September 2008, when prices dropped the most during that period of the crisis.
Any new short selling restrictions do no good for market integrity and can only do harm.
This is the equivalent of a doctor treating a patient for a disease for which she has no evidence of. This is extremely dangerous to the patient and to financial markets.
My fear is that the only people who will be hurt by any new restrictions are the retail investors by paying larger spreads to market makers who could have trouble hedging properly under these types of rules. Therefore if (unfortunately) the SEC feels it has to enact a rule at all, then please give some kind of exemption to all market makers so that they don't take it out on us retail investors.
Continue to enforce the rules which already exist instead of creating other ones.