Guest View
User: Pass: | become a member
Posts Tagged ‘reinstatement of short-selling restrictions’

More Idiocy From the SEC: Reinstatement of Short-Selling Restrictions

More Idiocy From the SEC: Reinstatement of Short-Selling Restrictions

i like, timothy sykesCourtesy of Mish

Inquiring minds are reading S.E.C. May Reinstate Rules for Short-Selling Stocks

They have been reviled as the bad hats of Wall Street, nefarious traders who cashed in on the market collapse and, some insist, helped precipitate it.

Now short-sellers, the market skeptics who correctly called last year’s downturn, are coming under even more unwanted scrutiny, this time from federal regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission appears poised to reverse itself and reinstate rules that would make shorting stocks — that is, betting their prices will decline — somewhat more difficult.

Many banks, whose stocks came under attack last autumn, maintain that unfettered short-selling is dangerous. The shorts, their argument goes, helped bring down Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers last year.

Mary L. Schapiro, chairwoman of the S.E.C., has said that considering new rules restricting short-selling is a priority.

For the moment, the most likely outcome may be for the S.E.C. to reinstate a rule that the commission itself abolished with a unanimous vote in 2007, under its previous chairman, Christopher S. Cox. Known as the uptick rule, it would bar investors from shorting a stock until its price ticks at least a penny above its previous trading price.

To some, the issue is clear-cut. The American Bankers Association, a trade group representing the vast majority of American banks — whose equity values have been especially battered in the last 18 months — recently submitted an opinion in favor of reinstating the short-sale restrictions.

Sally Miller, a spokesman for the A.B.A., said the member banks thought there was a clear link between the market turmoil and the rule change.

usual Rounded Up A Bunch Of The Usual SuspectsThe American Bankers Association Group of Idiots

What brought down the banks was excessive leverage (40-1 or greater at Bear Stearns and Lehman), excessive dependence on real estate investments (both residential mortgages and commercial real estate), lax lending standards, off balance sheet investments ($1 Trillion at Citigroup alone), and a host of other piss poor discretions.

If the American Bankers Association wants to place the blame on who is responsible for this mess they ought to look straight in the mirror and blame themselves.

Moreover, Sally Miller is obviously a complete dunce as to how stock markets work. sally says there is a "clear link between the market turmoil and the rule change".


continue reading


Tags: , ,



 

Chart School

The Student Loan Debt Bomb

Courtesy of Doug Short.

Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.

It's interesting to watch some of the terms bandied about in headline news. For example, the LA Times headline reads S&P says student loan debt could be next financial bubble.

Next? Could Be?

What with the word "next"? Also what's with the words "could be"? Without a doubt student loans are in a bubble and have been for many years. The source of the problem, as it always is with financial bubbles, is cheap money, loans to nearly anyone, and in the case of student loans, no way to discharge the debt, even in bankruptcy.

From the article:

"Student-loan debt has ballooned and m...



more from Chart School

Phil's Favorites

James O’Shaughnessy: Mastering Emotions with Data

Courtesy of Joshua Brown, The Reformed Broker

James O’Shaughnessy, WSJ

James O'Shaughnessy is one of the few active equity managers we vibe with at our shop because his firm and its strategies are data-driven as opposed to from the gut or emotional.  There are no chats with company management during the stock selection process, no guessing games in terms of asset allocation - just numbers.  This approach, of course, doesn't guarantee profits by any means - but it is a repeatable one and it certainly helps avoid the everyday human folly that can so easily derail just about all of us.

James had a post over at my WSJ home-away-from-home blog Financial Adviser this week that offered advice to advisors about keeping client emotions i...



more from Ilene

Zero Hedge

Greece at the Point of no Return

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by testosteronepit.

Wolf Richter   www.testosteronepit.com

"The European Union is suffering under Germany,” Georgios Karatzaferis said on Friday. He is the president of the rightwing LAOS. With 15 members in parliament, the party is a minority partner in the coalition cabinet of party-less technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos. Karatzaferis accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of trying to "impose her will on Southern Europeans." He called t...



more from Tyler

Sabrient

Sabrient Risers - 2/11/2012

Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisICABUYThe projected value for Empresas ICA is still rising quickly even though past earnings have already improved significantly.XBUYThe projected value for US Steel is still rising quickly even though past earnings have already improved significantly.FEICBUYProjected value continues to rise for FEI while long term increases in earnings growth are also becoming more widely expected.ASBCBUYMany analysts are expecting higher than previously expected long term growth from Associated Bancorp, and its near-term earnings outlook is also improving....

more from Sabrient

Insider Scoop

Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Friday February 10, 2012

Courtesy of Benzinga.

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Friday February 10, 2012:

Actuant Acquires Jeyco Pty

The Deal:
Actuant (NYSE: ATU) announced Friday that it has acquired Jeyco Pty Ltd (“Jeyco”). Headquartered near Perth, Australia, Jeyco designs and provides specialized mooring, rigging and towing systems and services to the offshore oil & gas industry in Australia and other international markets. Additionally, its highly engineered products are used in a variety of applications for other markets including cyclone mooring and marine, defense and mining tow systems. Jeyco generates annual revenues of approximately $20 million.

Actuant shares closed at $27.33 Friday, a loss of 0.18% on average volume.

...

http://www.insidercow.com/ more from Insider

Market Montage

And Still Not a Single 1% Down Day in 2012

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

A little flurry of buying in the closing 5 minutes tacked on 2 S&P points and took the major indexes off the lows.  Only the Russell 2000 finished with a greater than 1% loss (1.4%) as it has been relatively weak versus the senior indexes for the past few sessions.   While today was the "worst day of the year" – it was quite a low bar as the previous biggest loss on the S&P 500 was -0.57%.

The S&P 500 held well above the 10 day moving average (didn't even really touch it) and did not even attempt to fill the gap from last Friday's employment report.  The teflon market rolls on for now.  Specul...



more from Mark

ETF Selector

ETFs Skid On Greece (VGK, EWG, FXE, DIA, SPY)

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Greece was “saved” for less than 24 hours but now major ETFs around the world skid into the weekend on Greek fears

After wangling for a week or more, Greek took their new deal to the European Ministers meeting, only to have it promptly rejected and so as we go into the weekend, major global markets and ETFs have again hit the skids on Greece.

After two years of wangling, the European zone is demanding yet more and deeper cuts for Greece to qualify for the next round of bailout loans that will keep the country from going bankrupt on March 20th.

Major European and United States ETF responded negatively to the new developments:

SPDR Dow Jones Industrial ETF (NYSEARCA:...



more from John

All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Click here for the full report.




To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...

more from David

Option Review

True Religion Falls Apart At The Seams After Earnings

 

Today’s tickers: TRLG, KR & IGT

...



more from Caitlin

OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of February 6th, 2012

Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current  trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options. 

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader 

...

more from OpTrader

Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly: The Relentless Pursuit of Meaningless Metrics

NEW: Elliott and Ilene are available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.

Here's the latest Stock World Weekly, called "The Relentless Pursuit of Meaningless Metrics."  

...

more from SWW

IRA Strategy/Income Trader

Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 1/30/2012

Here is a quick update of past trades and our current position. AA Money No trade this week as we wait for AA to settle. Phil remarked last week that AA seemed overvalued. In the meantime, it looks like we might have to roll our Feb 9 calls. Good thing we sold only 5 of them against our position. Last week P&L - 310.00 We lost ground last week, but we still have 11 months to sell premium! FAS Money Very good week for FAS Money as we benefited from the large amount of premium sold the previous week. We covered most of the shorts in advance of the Fed speech, but sold another set of options on Wednesday after the speech - 2 FAS calls that expired worthless on Friday, 2 FAS put that we are still holding and 2 FAZ put that we bought back for a profit on Friday. A late stick comparable to last week's almost gave us problems at the end of the day though! Last week P&L - $4277.00 IWM Money A decent week in this virtual portfo...

more from Strategies

Pharmboy

Biotech Investing for 2012

Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Finding new and exciting Biotech companies that target novel mechanisms is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  Sure there are many companies working on cutting edge science, but investing in those companies to reap the rewards of their work is a very dangerous game.  More often than not, companies fail because the mechanism does not pan out, the compound(s) do not have pharmacokinetics (get into the body or last very long in the body), or an adverse event happens that knocks years off a development timeline.  In addition, the stock can be manipulated by market makers so investors don't know which way is up.  I approach investing in biotechs as a long term prospect.  I continue to like our current portfolio of biotech companies (join in chat for many of those plays), and we continually add/subtract shares and sell/buy options on ...



more from Pharmboy



As Seen On:




About Phil:

Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...

Learn more About Phil >>

About Ilene:

Ilene is editor and affiliate program coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site (blogroll, archives, more). Contact Ilene to learn about our affiliate and content sharing programs.

Favorites Site >>