Three Canadian Banks Absent From SEC Ban List on Short Selling

Investors looking to short financials on U.S. markets were largely out of luck Friday, after the SEC action to call a ten day "timeout" on short selling in financial stocks.

But for those investors who absolutely had to, a trio of Canadian banks listed on the New York exchange, who were left of the SEC's list "don't short" banks, insurance companies and securities firms, might be of interest.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) and Bank of Montreal (BMO) are are all absent from the list of 799 names identified by the SEC, while Royal Bank of Canada (RY) and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) were included among the names.

Lifeco giants Manulife Financial Corp. (MFC) and Sun Life Financial Inc. (SLF) were also on the list as were insurers Fairfax Financial Holdings (FFH) and Kingsway Financial Services Inc. (KFS).

All of these companies are dual listed in New York and Toronto.  

In addition to BCM, TD and Bank of Montreal, another large Canadian firm closely tied to the financials sectors that was left off the list is Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (BAM) and its affiliate Brookfield Properties Corp. (BPO), which are also dual-listed on New York and Toronto. 

Perhaps also of interest to short sellers, is that ETFs like the Financial Select Sector (XLF) are also not listed as part of the temporary ban. 

On the list or not, the market movement on Friday for all the names mentioned here were up, with increases ranging from 2% to as high a 7% in the case of Manulife.