[Nervous Tick]

>> Short-sellers have been blamed for piling into commercial and investment bank stocks and driving stock prices lower.

Ethical short sellers are a vital part of the food chain.

NAKED short sellers, on the other hand, should be strung up.

[Nervous Tick]

Forgot to add:

>> driving stock prices lower

Just like some people need killin’, some stock prices NEED to be driven lower.

[BillM]

Naked shorts have no place in orderly markets since they cause a dramatic distortion in the size of the float and the implied market capitalization.

The up-tick rule has been in force for a long time. It prevented the kind of parasitic runs we have been seeing lately.

[SJackson]

Ethical short sellers are a vital part of the food chain...NAKED short sellers, on the other hand, should be strung up.

Short selling being as old as the markets, naked shorts and suspension of the uptick rule being creations of Cox. For no good reason I've ever heard.

[Red in Blue PA]

Re: Ethical short sellers are a vital part of the food chain.

What nonsense. We didn’t have short sellers int he 1950’s and yet somehow the market managed to flourish.

[steve86]

Ethical short sellers are a vital part of the food chain.

Very much true.

I was just reading about how one of the smaller European bourses fell 10% the day after all short selling was banned. Also, the Pakistan exchange's volume dropped to nothing -- the market wasn't functioning -- so short selling had to be permitted again.