user225084-justme

The Blame Game, Part I: The Short-Seller Witch Hunt

Fer Pete's sake, Smarty_Pants. Why are you stereotyping me as someone who buys long, possibly on margin and dislikes short-sellers?

Quite the opposite is true.

My contribution to this thread was to point out the strong analogy, or duality if you will, between short selling and margin buying, with the intent of illustrating that if you restrict one type of transaction then you should also restrict the other, or neither, so as to make the playing field level (or the market "free" if you will).

What's not clear about that? Jeez. You keep arguing with me because you think I'm against short sellers. Even if I happened to be, you should stick to arguing against what I have said, not just arguing because you think you disagree with me and therefore do not like me. Get a clue.

And you even have good points: Spreading rumours to drive UP the price of a stock is much more common than spreading rumours to drive down a stock. I agree completely.

The Blame Game, Part I: The Short-Seller Witch Hunt

Jeez, Smarty_pants, I don't have more time for you.

First , it appears that you are arguing with me about something I did not wrote. Note that there are multiple usernames of the form userNNNNNN.

Second, yeah, when I short a stock, I get money in my account, just to the same extent as I get stock in my account when I buy on margin. This is completely analogous,. There is nothing special about shorting. Get it?

Once and for all: Selling stock you do not own is the dual transaction of buying stock with money you do not own.

The Blame Game, Part I: The Short-Seller Witch Hunt

@Smarty_Pants,

There was not much point to what you wrote there, I'm afraid. Of course I get money when I short a stock. And I get stock when I buy long on margin. Restrictions on what I can do with said new property exist in both cases, and there is a symmetry between the two.

My point is that the SEC is breaking the symmetry between the two, which is bad.

The Blame Game, Part I: The Short-Seller Witch Hunt

Short sale = getting money by selling stock that you borrowed
Buy on margin = getting stock by selling money that you borrowed

It is quite clear that if the SEC wants to ban short sales, it should also ban buying on margin,even if it applies only to certain stock.

Yes, rampant double standards are again being imposed on the “free” markets.