Kimasabe

Fear Not Yet a Factor

Why shouldn't you be able to make money, and also lose money, as a stock price goes down? Just like when a stock price goes up.

I'll tell you where the short sellers have been... singing from the roof tops to anyone who will listen about all the systemic risks and problems in the economy (housing, financials, banking, credit markets, commodities, inflation) while the head-stuck-in-the-sand crowd was saying "Oh gee, what problems? I can't possibly lose money - stocks always go up and no one in companies, or the government or on Wall st. would ever lie to me... would they?"

Waaa, sounds like some of the latest posters have lost money in the market and have sour grapes about it! History is not on your side. If you just would have listened... Think man, think!

Here's a great article on the current state of this short bashing titled:
"This Blame Game is Short on Logic" ....

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/95c...

Enough said.

Fear Not Yet a Factor

wpdragon gets it right and scores a perfect 10.

There is a HUGE difference between NAKED short selling and COVERED short selling. A point not stated yet... Covered short selling requires borrowing the shares at a cost... if they are available. And the cost to borrow is paid by the shorter regardless of where he comes out in the trade. Naked shorting does not require borrowing and is therefore already illegitimate as wpdragon correctly states.

apppro - you should learn the difference and then reassess the validity of your own viewpoint. Covered Shorters correctly throw the BS flag on bad fundamentals and other aberrations of stock valuations. Can you say dot com bubble? Pump and dump? Or any other parabolic rise or aberrant pricing behaviors? Shortsellers call out bad management and egregious accounting as well. How many times did Thain publicly say Merrill had plenty of capital? Eight, nine? And look what a mess Merrill is in. Shorters were telling you the truth about the value of Merrill's stock long before Thain & co. quit lying to everyone. As you would have it, the market would be akin to a giant Ponzi scheme. You could only hope to not be the last dope that bought in.

Oh, and the "building of our society" statement you made... man, the day is not long enough to enumerate the fallacies and totally tear apart that misguided and illogical statement you made.

OldNavySailor writes: "How does one legally sell something for which they do not have title?" Ummmm... you borrow it?! This is the mechanism in place for stock shorting - (see above). Just as there are mechanisms in place to sell the auto that you have a loan on and do not have title. Think man, think!

But where the Oldsailor really scares me is where he admits his own ignorance but then jumps on some so-called expert's bandwagon in a vain attempt to gain credibility. If you don't understand shorting to begin with, how do you understand the so-called expert you just latched on to? You should really do some studying so then you could make an informed opinion and rational discourse could follow. Otherwise, you're just sailing in the wrong ocean, sailor.

In some ways, Shortsellers are the ultimate truth tellers and at least they are willing to put their money behind their convictions.

Good article. As the author states... "Makes you wonder..."