Talibanization of Wall Street

Shorting stock is a strategy that is vital to professional
traders,arbitrage firms, hedge funds. Short stock also
produces income for clearing firms. Option Market
Makers would not be in business if "Short" rules were
too restrictive. In reality, "Short" postions are a vital
part of our countries complex financial structure.

However, look for possible "Shorting" restrictions
for the little guy, much like the pattern daytrader.
The SEC & NASD could very easily restrict capital
requirements for "Shorts" in customer accounts
under $25,000 , for example , if the regulators feel "Shorts"
are too risky etc.



Gene Weissman
Lieber & Weissman Sec., L.L.C.
gweissman@stocktrade.net
 
If there (hypothetically) were to be prohibitions on short selling they would not stop at <25K traders...the rhetoric (and fear) is based around well funded terrorist groups shorting...so the way to (hypothetically) prevent this would be to prohibit INDEPENDENT traders from short selling while leaving the industry insiders (as mentioned above by Gene) alone.
 
Roger,

I gave $25,000 and the reason as an example.
If shorting were restricted, look for greater regulatory
control, restrictions for shorting in foreign accounts ,
customer accounts , more disclosure for corp. accounts
etc. . I would agree with you that "Short" as a strategy is
vital to our financial system.




Gene Weissman
Lieber & Weissman Sec., L.L.C.
gweissman@stocktrade.net
 
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