February 26, 2010
In my opinion, effective regulation of the prohibition against naked short selling is an absolute necessity if the SEC is going to protect the investing public from abusive short selling by the hedge fund community. Investors, whether they be institutional or individual, should not be allowed to short equities unless they have first borrowed the security which they are shorting, or, if they currently own the security, have delivered the security to the broker executing the short sale on their behalf.
Short selling does enable investors to protect themselves and should be permitted, but shorting shares you neither own nor can borrow puts undue stress on the underlying equity and should not be permitted.
The uptick rule was effective when securities were quoted in eighths, but the bid/ask spreads today are too narrow for the restoration of the uptick rule to be effective.