[Toddsterpatriot]

Who removed the uptick requirement for shorts, at the height of the financial crisis? None other than the corrupt fed regulators. That rule was installed in 1987, and removed just in time for the 2008 market crash.

I think the uptick rule for sales was enacted in the 1930s.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

Urges New SEC Chief to Restore Uptick Rule to Regulate Short Sales of Stocks

Congressman also receives letter supporting reinstatement of the regulation from Christopher Cox, the former SEC Chair who rescinded the rule

(Washington, DC) - U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), a Senior Member of the House Financial Services Committee, today sent a letter to the new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairwoman Mary Schapiro – on her first day in office – that urges her to reinstate the uptick rule, the depression-era regulation that required a stock to increase in price before a short sale could be executed.

“One of the simplest but most important and effective initiatives that the SEC could undertake immediately to combat market volatility is the reinstatement of a so-called uptick rule” Ackerman wrote. “For more than 70 years, the uptick rule curbed short-selling runs until, short-sightedly, the Commission revoked it in 2007. The lack of a price test in our exchanges created an environment that provided short sellers with the ability to both exploit and accelerate the failures of a number of companies, including Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the collapse of which had a devastating effect on confidence in the U.S. financial markets.”

Ackerman also received a letter from former SEC Chairman Christopher Cox dated January 20, 2009 – the day he left the agency – in which Cox said he supports the reinstatement of an uptick rule. Cox sent the correspondence despite the fact that the SEC rescinded and refused restore the regulation during his tenure as Chairman.
http://www.house.gov/list/press/ny05_ackerman/PR_012709.html

[Cicero]

I didn’t mention that Bill Clinton removed the protections of the Glass-Steagal Act, preventing mergers of banks and brokerage firms. That was put in place in the 30s.

I think the uptick rule may have been toughened after the short but violent crash of 1987. You are right that it was first put in place in 1938. Chris Cox, of all people, removed it, presumably at the instigation of the usual suspects.