Shorting ban sends bank shares soaring

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Labour MP John Cruddas said: “In the wake of casino capitalism and with the onset of recession, the state is the only means society has of protecting itself from the destructive forces of global capitalism.”

Nationalise it all. GKB (Gordon Knows Best).

Casino Capitalism - as encouraged and cosied up to by whom? Ahem - Labour!

[AtW]

Casino Capitalism - as encouraged and cosied up to by whom? Ahem - Labour!

Everyone loves casino so long as they win, but when they start to lose...

[Turion]

Some of you guys are flattering yourselves if you think that your spreadbetting has contibuted to the problem, and is the reason for this new ruling. Most of you guys lose money anyway.

No, Mug punters are not the problem, it's the massively contrived and coordinated insider market manipulation by hedgefunds that is the problem.

[M_B]

Going short is a facility explicitly offered by CMCMarkets. Had it been illegal then CMC would have banned it this morning. They haven't.

Yes spread betting and shorting are physically different operations. But the effect on profit/loss is almost exactly the same.

I don't see short selling it as unethical at all. All that short selling is is borrowing shares from someone with the promise to return them a few days later, for a small fee (which you will honour), selling them to someone who wants to buy them at the market price, waiting, buying them from someone who wants to sell them at the market price (which has gone down if the short has been a successful trade) and returning them to the person from whom you borrowed them.
Everything you have done is with the full consent of everyone involved at every stage.

Anyone who criticises short sellers - its just sour grapes that you didn't have the balls to make the trades yourselves.

The issue is that short sellers were suspected of deliberately instigating the drop in price - no one had a problem with the practice of Short Selling as such, just the manipulation of the market.

[ace00]

Everyone loves casino so long as they win, but when they start to lose...

Like the avatar BTW.

Should casino's offer new roullette maybe? Just with a big "1" in the middle with odds 1/1 - 1 ?

[aceboy]

Has anyone actually proven the the Short selling was to blame for the HBOS fall?

The BBC news last night reported that when the (market) investigated the trades over the last few days they found very little evidence of short selling and concluded that this was not to blame....

[AtW]

Like the avatar BTW.

[AtW]

Has anyone actually proven the the Short selling was to blame for the HBOS fall?

It's difficult to prove to high standard of courts - was not illegal either even if you do prove it. So banning it was the only option to ensure it stops affecting things.

[ace00]

Has anyone actually proven the the Short selling was to blame for the HBOS fall?

Do we do proof anymore?

[aceboy]

It's difficult to prove .

Are you sure? in order to short sell you have to borrow shares to cover the exposure if running the risk over night or you have to buy back during the same day, either way this has a full audit trail...