Short-selling ban is a 'mind-blowingly stupid' knee jerk reaction

[AtW]

you cannot make money on a downward trend

It should not be possible to make money on downwards trends - shares should act as long term investment not funny game that screws up the whole world while select few get rich on it.

[thunderlizard]

It's the way it's been done that's most annoying. Restrict the ban to financial stocks (who, after all, were the ones doing the lion's share of the shorting) so it's still OK to for them to do it to other people's industries but not when the boot's on the other foot. It'll go one of 2 ways. Either they'll remove the ban in which case all the would-be shorters will come immediately out of the woodwork and the stone will drop 431.3 points back to earth. Or they won't & the financial geniuses will be able to carry on even more complacently than before until it goes nipples up again.

[Alf W]

Today's rise was little to do with the ineffective shorting ban but more to do with the US government taking on the toxic loan book. Lots of people were prevented from taking profits today by overwhelmed trading systems. They will be back again Monday.

Back to normal next week with 20% drop/rises. If you're smart play the game. If you're not interested then fine. If you're dumb, whinge about it.

[Turion]

Today's rise was little to do with the ineffective shorting ban.

Yeah, right. so why did bank stocks rose 30%?

....nothing do to with panicking short sellers covering their positions????

[Addanc]

Breaking news INSANE GREED STILL BEST WAY TO MAKE MONEY, SAY EXPERTS.

[BrilloPad]

Breaking news INSANE GREED STILL BEST WAY TO MAKE MONEY, SAY EXPERTS.

"INVESTING your money with a greedy maniac who would throttle a nun for 50p" - most of the traders I know would do it for alot less.....

[AtW]

"INVESTING your money with a greedy maniac who would throttle a nun for 50p" - most of the traders I know would do it for alot less.....

Is Buffet insanely greedy? I don't think so. But he is an excellent investor - long term thinking and he does it the old fashioned way - checks the balance sheet and decides if long-term that company makes sense. He is not making money by aggressively shorting this or that - he is actually a proper investor who does not lose your money too. That's right - the main thing about investing is not to lose money, then it is to make profit. Insanely greedy trader will lose you the capital and get away with it.

[BrilloPad]

Is Buffet insanely greedy? I don't think so. But he is an excellent investor - long term thinking and he does it the old fashioned way - checks the balance sheet and decides if long-term that company makes sense. He is not making money by aggressively shorting this or that - he is actually a proper investor who does not lose your money too. That's right - the main thing about investing is not to lose money, then it is to make profit. Insanely greedy trader will lose you the capital and get away with it.

He certainly predicted that big companies with strong brands would do well.

But as SG has said - there is a need to encourage small and medium sized businesses. Even amont banks.

[AtW]

But as SG has said - there is a need to encourage small and medium sized businesses.

"Encourage" them by shorting them like heck to make profit?

[AtW]

But as SG has said - there is a need to encourage small and medium sized businesses. Even amont banks.

I don't have stats at hand and can't be arsed to look for them but I think majority of trades by volume falls on FTSE 100 or their equivalents. These are the most liquid shares that everyone likes (especially big index tracking funds). How many people use AIM for example? Not a lot - volumes there are a joke. The only noteable exceptions are dodgy companies from Russia and alike who don't want to disclose more info in order to be traded on LSE proper - AIM is good enough for them for now.

The support of small companies in the UK is a joke anyway - VCs in this country don't do what VCs do in USA - invest into startups, instread in this country VCs do (or did) highly leveraged buyouts of big companies that they want to hold a bit and then resell.