Short Sales: The Real Issue
by ilene - October 22nd, 2009 1:45 pm
Karl Denninger presents a compelling argument that market makers should not be exempt from rules preventing short-selling shares that cannot be borrowed (naked short selling). Because the quantity of a given stock in "float" is fixed, traders and market makers should not be allowed to create unreal and illogical bets on stocks that result in perversion of market dynamics and wild price swings. That’s my summary, Karl explains in detail. – Ilene
Short Sales: The Real Issue
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
Matt Taibbi once again writes in Rolling Stone, this time on naked short sales, and while he gets a good part of the issue right, he (and many others who have opined on this situation over the years) miss the forest for the trees.
Matt writes:
But the most damning thing the attack on Bear had in common with these earlier manipulations was the employment of a type of counterfeiting scheme called naked short-selling. From the moment the confidential meeting at the Fed ended on March 11th, Bear became the target of this ostensibly illegal practice — and the companies widely rumored to be behind the assault were in that room. Given that the SEC has failed to identify who was behind the raid, Wall Street insiders were left with nothing to trade but gossip. According to the former head of Bear’s mortgage business, Tom Marano, the rumors within Bear itself that week centered around Citadel and Goldman (GS). Both firms were later subpoenaed by the SEC as part of its investigation into market manipulation — and the CEOs of both Bear and Lehman were so suspicious that they reportedly contacted Blankfein to ask whether his firm was involved in the scam. (A Goldman spokesman denied any wrongdoing, telling reporters it was "rigorous about conducting business as usual.")
Matt gets so close, but fails in the closing.
See, there are two area of naked shorting that nobody wants to really deal with, yet both have to be if we are ever to make a difference. Let’s deal with them in turn.
The first, the writing of "naked" swaps, is one that I’ve written about before. The essence of a "credit default swap" is a contract whereby the buyer of protection insures…