May 12, 2009
Areas I believe require regulation and transparency with regards to short-sales, short-sellers:
1/ The rightful owner of a share of stock should be able to restrict it's being borrowed for purposes of a short-sale or any other purpose,
2/ The rightful owner should receive compensation for shares borrowed if the rightful owner of the stock makes it available to be borrowed for a short-sale or any other purpose,
3/ Short-sale positions must never be allowed to fail-to-deliever (share counterfeiting), a vehicle must be instituted to enable the escrowing of funds related to a short-sale where those funds may not be accessed by the short-seller until after the delivery of shares by the short-seller to the buyer is confirmed,
4/ Short-sale positions in all stocks must be reported daily and be available to the public,
5/ Fails-to-deliver must be reported daily in all stocks and be available to the public,
These requirements are a minimum measure to provide the investing public the ability to quantify or estimate or determine the "risk of fraud and/or manipulation" as part of their analysis in whether or not to purchase a share of stock.