[Proud_USA_Republican]

I have no problem with shorting stocks. Its naked shorting which is a MAJOR problem.

Naked Short Selling causes a unnatural drop in share price by artificially boosting the supply of shares available to the market. This reduces market efficiency. Companies who are doing a stock offering will have to issue more shares to raise the same amount of cash. Naked short selling can threaten the stability of stock prices because stocks can be sold without having to first aquire them from existing owners. Also, present naked shorting rules allow brokerages to make large profits doing "bona-fide market making" while stock markets are falling. Since retail investors are not allowed to do naked shorting, this presents an unfairness or uneven playing field.

[PositiveCogins]

So the $90 stock was borrowed and sold creating a false stock which in effect inflated the amount of the stocks on the market and by falsely increasing the amount of stocks it causes the original $90 stock to fall. This is where the DTCC lets the original stock stay on the board and the borrowed fake stock sold and re bought.

[chuckles]

There have been several stocks in recent past that have had more short open interest than float. Very illegal and seems nobody cares. It basically allows someone(a crook) to short as much stock as he/she wants to UNTIL HE/SHE IS RIGHT! Long buyers can only buy what they have the cash and margin to buy, but a short that doesn't have to borrow shares can just keep shorting till the longs give up. That gives hedge funds, market makers and big boys( aka Soros types) the edge. Who is going to tell Buffet or Soros they can't do what they want to do? After all, they're good for it, right? Well maybe Refco wasn't good for it. I believe TZOO and Taser were in that boat awhile back. Also the CEO of Overstock.com even complained about it to no avail.