April 10, 2008
Gentlemen,
Illegal naked shorting is of course already against the law. Legal naked shorting by Market Makers should be against the law, as it is a source of abuse and fraud and that is well known to me, to you, and to the investing community both institutional and retail.
The recent collapse of Bear Sterns was an example of what can happen in the right environment. Rumors, shorting, more rumors, more shorting creating a death spiral for a once proud company. It wasn’t that they didn’t have any assets, it was just that because of the things being said, no business wanted to accept their collateral.
It is high time the SEC did what it is supposed to do: To give investors confidence in the American Stock markets, instead of allowing a few companies to make profits without any risk of loss.
The entire market is built on confidence, and the recent failure of the rating agencies in the area of ABSs and CMOs, and the further failure of the brilliant credit analysts whose companies bought and sold all of those securities globally does not instill confidence in the American economy by any means.
Adoption of this rule is one step in the right direction.
Kevin Dalton