Naked Short Selling posts

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Germany Wants Wider Ban on Naked Short Selling

In yet another surprise move, Germany wants to widen its ban on naked short selling. According to the Wall Street Journal, Germany's Finance Ministry proposed extending its ban on "naked short selling" to cover all stocks and euro currency derivatives not intended for hedging.

Naked short sales covers sales not owned by the seller and isn't borrowed to cover the position while it is held. Many politicians in Germany see naked short selling as a way to manipulate the markets. What happens is that naked short sales can dwarf the underlying assets.

Continue reading Germany Wants Wider Ban on Naked Short Selling

Great, Germans Halt Naked Short Selling

The financial stocks and the overall market continued to get pounded by news out of Europe. This time it was Germany halting naked short selling. Chancellor Merkel's coalition wants to stop traders from buying credit insurance on government bonds they don't own ("naked swaps").

While there has been little support for this measure outside of Germany by governments or financial institutions, I think it is long over due. Many are crying foul, stating that it will increase interest rates, dry up liquidity, and prevent institutions from hedging their risks. I'm not so sure these would be bad things. I can think of good reasons to ban naked swaps.

I do not take this stance without due consideration because I have significant stakes in the financial sector, including positions in Bank of America Corporation (BAC), Citigroup, Inc. (C), E-Trade Financial Corporation (ETFC), General Electric Company (GE), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) and Wells Fargo & Company (WFC).

Continue reading Great, Germans Halt Naked Short Selling

Deutsche Bank Gets Safety Net from German Government

Deutsche Bank BD logoDeutsche Bank (DB) has been suffering from many of the same ailments -- a falling housing market, tightening credit markets, countries threatening to default on their bonds -- that have been plaguing other too-big-to-fail banks around the globe. But now Deutsche Bank has one key advantage over all of these other banks: the German government.

The German government -- via the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority -- announced that it is placing a ban on naked short selling on key financial instruments until March 31, 2011. The ban covers naked short selling of debt securities issued by eurozone countries, credit default swaps (CDS) on bonds of eurozone countries -- unless the CDS is providing a legitimate hedge against default risk -- and a select group of individual securities.

Continue reading Deutsche Bank Gets Safety Net from German Government

Germany Trying to Stop Speculators ... Alone

Germany, single-handedly, wants to stop speculation in eurozone debt bonds and 10 leading financial institutions, as well as credit default swaps. Late Tuesday it announced a trading ban in a sudden and unilateral move.

Germany did not discuss its actions with other EU nations. That is causing concern among the other eurozone countries. Reuters quotes German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, as saying: "We'll go first because it was precisely that part of the speculation with government bonds in the euro zone caused us such concern."

Continue reading Germany Trying to Stop Speculators ... Alone

You can profit from James Altucher's insanity

James Altucher is a financial journalist for The Wall Street Journal and founder of Stockpickr.com. His articles cover every angle of the market; he also stars in feature videos with other financial luminaries. He is the author of Trade Like a Hedge Fund, Trade Like Warren Buffett, SuperCa$h, and The Forever Portfolio.

He has taken a controversial path lately with numerous articles in the New York Post and Huffington Post. Some articles include: "Global Warming Is a Myth," "Should Insider Trading Be Made Legal?" "School of Hard Cash," "The Internet Is Dead (as an Investment)," and "5 Myths the Recession Taught Us."

Rumors of a new addition to the James Altucher library have entered the blogosphere, so I met with James to discuss a possible new book and the response from his recent aggressive views on finance and the stock market.

Continue reading You can profit from James Altucher's insanity

Barney Frank's plan for regulating derivatives comes up short

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank has a new proposal to regulate bank transactions. Some of it is OK and some of it perpetuates the abuses that brought Lehman and other financial institutions to their knees.

First the OK part. Frank's proposal would require over-the-counter derivatives to be traded on listed exchanges and sold on exchanges or processed through a regulation platform. This is not good enough. We need transparency for each and every trade done by each and every financial institution. That means that all trades must be done on a listed exchange and cleared through a clearinghouse. All of this data can be put on computers and monitored daily. Then if some trader goes beyond established guidelines, he will be shut down immediately.

Continue reading Barney Frank's plan for regulating derivatives comes up short

SEC plans for increased subpoena power

The Securities and Exchange Commission has a new point man to head up the compliance division of the agency. His name is Robert Khuzami. Mr. Khuzami is former federal prosecutor.

Mr. Khuzami wants to use subpoena powers to gain cooperation with the SEC in fraud and all kinds of trading schemes and violations. The subpoena power would be given to staff investigators. This is a marked change from the previous policy, which required the Commission to grant subpoenas. Other changes would include plans to submit more immunity requests to the Justice Department.

Continue reading SEC plans for increased subpoena power

Short sellers beware -- the regulators are coming

Remember the fall of Lehman Brothers? During that debacle, 38 millions shares of Lehman were sold as naked short sales, driving the price of Lehman shares to practically zero. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stood by and did nothing. To this day, whatever investigation into the Lehman failure was due to short selling is not clear. The SEC has not made the names of the naked short sellers public. The Lehman bankruptcy involved securities fraud under SEC regulations. Why aren't the principals being prosecuted and convicted? The SEC has the power to ban firms and individuals from doing business and impose harsh fines on those convicted in this case.

Continue reading Short sellers beware -- the regulators are coming

SEC chief says crackdown on short-selling is a priority

Newly-installed SEC Chairman told a public round-table meeting that she has "made it a priority to evaluate the issue of short-selling regulation, and ensure that any future policies in this area are the result of a deliberate and thoughtful process."

The SEC has floated a number of potential proposals for dealing with the short-selling "problem," including making it illegal to short sell stocks that are down 10% or more. One popular "solution" is to bring back the recently revoked uptick rule that required short sellers to execute trades only on an uptick -- if the last trade was at $20.00, you could only sell short at $20.01 or higher.

Continue reading SEC chief says crackdown on short-selling is a priority

SEC, stop naked short selling!

Short selling has gotten a bad rap lately. If you look at the markets with an open mind you will see that there are people who believe that stock XYZ is going up and Joe the investor wants to buy it to make money. Yet if you talk to a dozen people there will be those among them who say that stock XYZ is no good, that earnings are bad and that the stock will drop further. Here is where the notion of short selling comes into play. If you allow an investor to buy XYZ stock, it is not fair to prevent an investor from selling XYZ stock. Markets are always two sided. There are buyers and there are sellers, otherwise... why have a market?

Continue reading SEC, stop naked short selling!

SEC fields naked short selling complaints

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "The Securities and Exchange Commission received 5,000 complaints over a year and a half about an aggressive form of short selling that critics call market manipulation, but it didn't bring any enforcement cases, according to a report by the agency's inspector general."

Continue reading SEC fields naked short selling complaints

Short selling not a factor in banking beatdown

With conspiracy theorists and corporate crybabies up in arms about short sellers and their exhibitionist twins -- naked short sellers -- manipulating markets and causing the collapse of companies like Bear Stearns, the man in charge of regulating the British market, says that's just a bunch of poppycock.

Adair Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, said that the FSA's lifting of the ban on short-selling last Friday had not played a "significant" part in the meltdown that has occurred in the interim.

"So far, we have not seen stuff (that) suggests that short-selling and in particular abusive short-selling has a significant role in what has occurred, he told the BBC.

Let's recap: Last September short-selling was banned and then the ban was lifted and the market absolutely crumbled within a week. Why? Because people were concerned that the financial stocks had no value because they would require nationalization to avoid outright failure.

Short-sellers are a convenient scapegoat for the current mess but so far there's very little to indicate that it has any relevance at all.

Hedge funds: Suing the SEC?

In the UK, a number of hedge funds are about to sue the Financial Services Authority claiming that it did not have the proper authority to curb short-selling, which cost the funds million of pounds. The FSA is a first cousin of the SEC and performs a similar role.

According to The Telegraph, "Lawyers are being galvanised on behalf of a raft of hedge funds which claim the financial watchdog has illegitimately extended its powers and caused 'wide-spread capital destruction.'"

Whether or not their argument has legal merit, it does have a certain amount of fairness on its side.

Naked shorting, a practice in which investors bet a stock will go down without properly borrowing shares to cover the trade, has always been illegal. The act of shorting itself has for decades been a legitimate enterprise. It acts as a check-and-balance system so that stocks do not rise relentlessly without those who believe they should fail having a stake in the matter.

The SEC has not only done financial harm to a number of hedge funds, it also has taken all of the teeth out of a process that has given trading in stocks an economic and market legitimacy.

If hedge funds sue, they are in the right and ought to prevail.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Cramer on BloggingStocks: SEC played a big role in creating this chaos

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says they had no idea how catastrophic pulling the naked-shorting rules would be.

Christopher Cox and his crowd of academics and theoreticians did more to destroy the confidence of this market with their adherence to free-market destruction of stocks than any of the managements of the companies themselves.

I know that is a strong statement, but you have to understand that the rules against naked shorting and shorting without upticks were about having firebreaks in the system. Consider these rules a swath of chopped-down trees meant to slow a fire so firefighters have a real chance to put out a monster conflagration.

Let's take AIG (NYSE: AIG) (Cramer's Take). Here's a company that has lots of liabilities but also lots of assets. While its liabilities are liquid -- meaning it has to pay them off quickly if there is an event that triggers payment -- its assets, such as its great life insurance and aircraft leasing businesses, are illiquid. AIG couldn't just turn around and sell them.

Still, new management came in at AIG and decided to work on a plan, meant to be revealed at the end of September, that would detail asset disposals that could make the company a more solid credit with an ability to make good on their policies on financial instruments. It would also be able to access capital in the markets once those illiquid assets were disposed of.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: SEC played a big role in creating this chaos

The changing face of short selling

questionA lot was said this past week in regard to the SEC attack on rumor mongering and willful misrepresentation of facts for the benefit of naked short sellers. One point that I'd like to make perfectly clear is this: The SEC's indicated desire to quash the spreading of false negative information by, and for the benefit of, manipulative short sellers, is nothing even remotely akin to a First Amendment issue. The First Amendment does not give protection to slanderers, liars, and sabotage artists. I'd also like to make clear my opinion that honest short selling is a positive, healthy, and necessary practice. I believe it helps to define and benchmark real value within the markets.

The Los Angels Times reported that SEC Chairman Christopher Cox may have his hands full in the wake of a measure that protects nearly two dozen large financial firms from naked short selling. The measure requires "anyone effecting a short sale in these securities (to) arrange beforehand to borrow the securities and deliver them at settlement." It's a rule that is long over due for enforcement and that shall most probably, at least temporarily, lay to rest some serious market abuses.

Continue reading The changing face of short selling

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