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Ongoing Market Sell-Off: It's Not The Short Sellers

Owen - you are mising the boat here. Short sellers and massive portfolio liquidation absolutely DO knock down prices. At any given time, the available buyers for any stock can only buy so many shares. If more shares - many more shares show up on the market at $x, then anyone who actually MUST sell now, will have to offer shares for less than $x or else his offer won't set the low ask and won't execute.

See this:

DECK is at $100.
Short sellers DUMP tons of short shares at $100.
Now there are 50,000 shares at the ask of $100
Buyers are taking 10,000 shares every 1 minute
You have to wait for 10 minutes to MAYBE see a chance to get more than $100 for the legitimate shares you want to sell.
If you want to sell NOW, you must undercut to say $99.90.
Not a problem for the program trader shorts, their ask INSTANTLY goes to $99.75 and undercuts you - you are now off the ask and your shares don't sell. You lower to $99.50 - shorts immediately lower to $99. You drop to $97 and finally yours sell.

With unlimited program executed short selling, any stock can be knocked down a good 10% or more on any given day.