Talk:Naked short selling/Archive4

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About the Illegal Naked Short Facts

To ESkog

I saw your kind words and would respond on the page I read them on, but I cannot find it, so I hope you don't mind that I have come over here, and I will also post this on my talk page. It seems obvious that the naked short selling page has been co-opted by the miscreants. I see no reason that the link http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/Default.aspx is not permitted on the page as it is a legitimate blogsite, full of useful information where one can learn and share information on naked short selling. It is obvious to many of us that watch our stocks on a daily basis that there is blatant manipulation of the share price in many stocks, which is only possible through the counterfeiting of phantom shares. I am sorry you chose to side with the big money who are manipulating our markets and now the wikipedia. If I cannot participate in the wikipedia anymore, so be it. I know a lot about a few things, and a little about many. However if the wiki is not interested in seeking the truth, count me out.

_______

If this link http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/Default.aspx is not permitted to be displayed then it is obvious that the crooks are in charge of what is allowed to be included in the wikipedia. Shame on you for allowing either money or a personal bias by corrupt evil doers to bastardize widipedia and get in the way of telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. ___________

Leuko & Co I put the link in again http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/Default.aspx Please do not remove it as it is a powerful source of information on naked short selling. TIA - - - - - - -

To whomever:

TheSanityCheck.com is not a commercial site. We sell nothing. It is a collection of opinion and data, representative of everyone from academics, regulators, journalists, investor advocates. It is the official blog of the Market Reform Movement, whose work has been officially recognized by the Columbia Journalism Review, the Nevada Supreme Court, and other similarly serious sources. Most of the factual content is FOIA data collected from the SEC, which shows the actual amount of naked short selling in the US equities markets. The opinion pieces are typically written by Dave Patch, who has appeared on CNBC, Mark Faulk of TheFaulkingTruth.com, Bud Burrell, and Bob O'Brien, who has been interviewed by numerous publications. The overarching imperative of the bloggers and academics who contribute to the site is to establish a fair and transparent rule of law in our markets. Critics of our work generally fall into one camp - those who gain financially by an illegal practice such as naked shorting, and who will do virtually anything to silence any exposure of the extent to which the practice takes place. That includes many of the most powerful and wealthy icons on Wall Street, and most of the large institutions that trade stocks and make markets. Those who oppose naked shorting are everyone else: academics, investors, regulators, lawmakers, CEOs, anyone who has any interest in investing in the markets.

The "controversy" over naked shorting is a red herring. There is no controversy. It is illegal for anything but a market maker in bona fide market making instances to naked short. Much is made to confuse innocent failure to deliver due to a lost certificate, and the sort of practice that has hundreds of millions or billions of shares failing delivery every day. The 1934 Securities Exchange Act stipulates clearly that shares need to be delivered promptly - "settle" - including transfer of record ownership. Selling shares one doesn't have possession of, and has no intentions of delivering, is fraud. Simple. As discussed before, much effort goes into creating and atmosphere where simple fraud is blurred, by calling it something else. The reason all the effort is invested is because Wall Street makes many billions from the practice, and it is in the best interests of that system to lie, and obfuscate, and confuse, and pretend that taking a buyer's money and then refusing to deliver what they paid for is anything but fraud.

The battle taking place on this site is typical of what has taken place in the media. On one hand, we have wordsmiths with an agenda - argue that illegal naked short selling counters penny stock scams, cite like-minded journalists reciting their lines by rote, hammer that hundreds of millions of undelivered share COULD POSSIBLY be innocent, cite the SEC's self serving sleight of hand statements, ignore all contradictory evidence and data, no matter how plentiful...virtually every rhetorical dishonesty can be seen in just a few short paragraphs. On the other hand, we have the 1934 Act and the rules therein, we have FOIA data, and we have the expert testimony from a host of securities regulators, academics, legal experts, public officials, all of whom clearly articulate that naked shorting is real, is damaging, and is a big problem.

That Wiki allows the former to have precedence over the latter is tragic. They are not equal. Any rational or logical adult can see they aren't. References to one author's mediocrities, in both book and dated article format, abound, while the statements of the former head of the SEC, of the securities regulator of UT, of the former Undersecretary of Commerce, of magazines like Time and Bloomberg and Forbes, are discarded out of hand, with a feeble argument that "meat puppets" are advancing an "agenda."

Perhaps that is true. An agenda is being advanced. It can seem foreign to those with ulterior motives and an adversarial imperative.

The agenda is known as the truth.

Whether Wiki finds it unfamiliar and unwelcome is really the question, isn't it?

This is the long way of saying that removing the link to the pre-eminent site on naked shorting, which HAS been cited by the folks who hand out the Pulitzers as the source to go to for info on the topic, is typical of intellectual dishonesty of one of the editors here, and speaks to a desire to remove a source of hard data, on any pretense.

But using the contrivance that it is a commercial link, or someone's own, private website, is a canard, and beneath any site wishing to hold itself out as having even a modicum of integrity. ___________

Please do not remove this link http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/Default.aspx until you have given an adequate reason why a link to a blog dedicated to naked short selling should not be included on the naked short selling page. You gave one reason, then when I showed that I was not affiliated with the site and that it is not a commercial site all you could say was oh well, it is not allowed. I say it is allowed. TIA _______________________________________________________________________________________________ In the most recent edits, I deleted unsupported opinion from columnists and reporters containing no hard data, but rather their non-expert opinions. I restored links to expert testimony in the form of letters to the SEC from regulators and other acknowledged authorities on market operations. I removed the segment wherein a rant about penny stock scamsters contends that this is all a ploy by them to distract the market - no basis or data is cited for this section, and it has no information to support its statements - it is pure agenda masquerading as fact. I would propose that if there are penny stock scamsters using the technique to defraud investors, and if naked short sellers, by beaking a different set of laws, somehow are helping the market, that data be cited demonstrating that to be true, and quantifying how often it happens, and what measurements are being used to establish their helpful role.

I have no doubt that the editor who has been so opposed to anything approaching balance here will strike it all, arbitrarily, arguing that "meat puppets" (ad hominem attacks on other editors) have "vandalized" (shorthand for cited facts and struck unsupported, biased statements) the article. Let's all start our stopwatches to see how long it takes. ______________________________________________________________________________________

Please stop removing this blog link http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/Default.aspx As I stated it is not a commercial site and I have no affiliation with the site other than learning and sharing information about naked shorting. I am new to the editing procedures, so if someone could advise or help make this link permanent I would appreciate it. TIA _______________________________________________________________________________________________

Apparently, the opinions of reporters who have no advanced degree or academic history in stock clearing, securities law, or any other relevant area are OK - as long as they support the article's agenda that concern over naked short selling is a crackpot agenda. If you cite Forbes, or Time, or Bloomberg, or Euromoney, or any of the host of academics on record pronouncing it to be a huge problem, that is deleted by the editor with an agenda. Why? Who knows...

Today, TheSanityCheck.com got in a new set of FOIA data on OTCBB issues from January 3, 2005 to May 31, 2006. The number of failed deliveries increased by almost 20%, from 585 million per day to 670 million. To put that into perspective, that is roughly 15% or so of the daily volume on OTCBB that is naked shorted. And yet the article would have most believe this is a fringe non-issue. I would call 15+% a big problem. Certainly, I would cite it as fact, and not Floyd Norris' opinion, or a Wiki editor's opinion that pump and dump fraud (of unknown severity due to a complete lack of any supporting data) is offset by naked short selling fraud.

Wiki has the potential to be a valuable tool. When it is hijacked by a special interest, whose agenda is to eliminate facts and dissenting data, in favor of opinion that resonates with that special interest, it destroys any value the forum has. The SEC has said that Reg SHO is working, and has resulted in a marked decrease in delivery failures. We now see that on the NYSE they are up a bit over the last year and a half, and on the OTCBB, they are up 20% or so. The SEC is lying when they say it is working. The data proves the lie. There is no interpretation required. It is basic math. Thus, their opinions are suspect, as is their Amicus. Apparently one state supreme court agrees.

I note that Wiki prides itself on debunking pseudo-science. I celebrate that debunking drive. It is with wonder, then, that I read paragraph after paragraph of gibberish containing no verifiable facts, but rather arguments from authority, non sequitors, logical fallacies, and an articulation of rules and requirements that seem as draconian and bureaucratic as anything Pravda had during the height of the Soviet era.

How about we lose all the "critics say an illegal trading practice responsible for over 15% of one exchange's daily volume is actually good for you" rhetoric, and stick to the facts? Facts like FOIA data, on-point academic dissertations by experts, balanced comments from noted authorities (versus the one-sided spin of the NASAA forum - where most of the panel of experts agreed the problem was substantial, and growing, and only the rep from the exchange, and the regulator, tried to pronounce it a non-issue - to virtually universal derision of the other panelists), and citations of SEC code and UCC 8?

NCANS filed an Amicus that disagreed with the flawed argument submitted by the SEC. The SEC's spin is cited, but the NCANS and NASAA briefs, that argue that the SEC is wrong, are not. Why not? Or rather, why is the SEC's screed here in the first place? UCC 8 defines a security entitlement as requiring prompt delivery, in order to remain bona fide. That is in UCC 8. When a share isn't delivered promptly, the entitlement ceases to be bona fide, per UCC 8. No opinion required, just the ability to read the code. If someone wants to obfuscate the security entitlement issue, why introduce one of three Amicus' submitted in that case, instead of the actual code that clarifies the point? To what end? How is our appreciation of the issue improved? Answer: it isn't.

Pseudo-science, throughout the centuries, always has giveaways. The first is a rigid requirement that facts inconvenient to the theory are ignored. In extreme cases, such as witch hunts and periods of severe dogmatic hysteria, all evidence of flaws in the prevailing wisdom are erased, deemed dangerous to the pseudo-scientific agenda. Only "approved" authors may be cited, only "approved" knowledge described. The very existence of data that shows the agenda to be false is considered a danger, and often the pseudo-scientist is the first to call everyone else a heretic, or a vandal. Fascist regimes also operate in this manner. Knowledge is dangerous. Facts are dangerous. Data is dangerous. Best to erase it, declaring it to be flawed, then to allow the reader to judge it on its merits.

Wiki, in the best pseudo-scientific, or metaphysical tradition, is doing exactly that with this article. Experts are dismissed, only select sources are cited, and hard data is expunged and deemed irrelevant.

Most would think that the actual number of delivery failures on our exchanges would be relevant to this article. Not the editor who keeps changing all of it back every few hours. Most would believe that the observations of securities regulators and academics and market scholars would be of more value than the opinions of reporters with no particular acumen on the topic. Not on Wiki. Most would likely find reading the actual code, that mandates prompt delivery of all trades, including transfer of record ownership, to be more germane than forgettable paperbacks with no relevance. Not the editor "standing guard" here, who also coincidentally wrote the Wiki page on that author, which is a glowing and improbably positive genuflection.

What a shame that the academics who are involved in Wiki have to lower their standards to the point where circling the wagons entails supporting this sort of nonsense. So much for rigorous logic and the scientific method. -- Boboncans --

OK. This is the answer I was given. Please do not add commercial links or links to your own private websites to Wikipedia, as you did in Naked short selling. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. You are, however, encouraged to add content instead of links as long as the content abides by our policies and guidelines. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. Leuko 02:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This is not a commercial link nor am I in any way affiliated in any way with the site. I do find the weblog to be the most informative blog on naked short selling, where pro and con can be discussed on the issue. So please explain again why it was again removed. I believe anybody interested in this subject would find the blog a powerful source of information. Isn't that really what the wiki is supposed to promote...an encyclopedia of useful information. To leave out this source is a disservice to the public. I urge you to read the blog and see the value in its inclusion.

Why was the link I entered at approximately 10:10 PM 10/2/06 under external links Weblogs journalling naked short selling http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/Default.aspx removed? I have seen weblogs entered in external links in other topics in the wiki?

Why is Gary Weiss mentioned two times in this article about a trading practice that is illegal except for in limited market making instances?

Has Gary cited some relevant data to support his opinions, or is Wikepedia now a forum for him to advertise his books, which contain his OPINION, and nothing more?

The FOIA data at the FOIA section of websites like TheSanityCheck.com is hard, verifiable data. It doesn't require opinions of people interested in selling their books. It is hard fact straight from the SEC. It shows that naked short selling started out at 65 million fails per day in 2005, and finished up in mid 2006 with 65 million fails per day, on the NYSE. Those fails are concentrated in only a few companies listed on the Reg SHO list.

Not trying to be contentious, but since when did Wikepedia become a propaganda machine for whatever the government spin is (via the SEC's lengthy statements) and a private for profit company's agenda (the DTCC)? And since when do divergent viewpoints, factually grounded in hard data, get expunged as coming from sources that aren't "approved"?

I see that the current entry has unsupported opinion from journalists like Floyd Norris and Joe Nocera memorialized as noteworthy. Neither of these gentlement possess advanced degrees, or in fact have any relevant experience with stock clearing and settlement - they are reporters, who are expressing opinions wholly lacking any factual support. Why are their viewpoints memorialized here, but the equally valid but conflicting viewpoints from Bloomberg, Time Magazine, CJR, Forbes, Euromoney not? Put another way, this entry uses anecdotes about how penny stock fraud is countered by failed delivery fraud, which wholly lacks any citations or factual basis. It uses the statements of one set of journalists, and ignores whole cloth the work of other journalists. It features several touts of a commercial book which lacks relevance in anything but the most tangential way. It selectively cites some testimony from NASAA, while completely ignoring the majority consensus and hours of testimony that conflict with that testimony. It deletes references to the recent Senate Judiciary Committee meeting in which experts commented on the topic.

In summary, any information that differs with the view of the completely un-qualified opinion of the editor who has parked himself here - matanmoreland - is deleted, regardless of the veracity of the information. Why matanmoreland has any right to tout books and delete factual, germane information, while keeping anecdots and completely biased opinion, in violation of Wiki's NPOV guideline, is unknown.

I don’t think this article needs commentary from Gary Weiss, Floyd Norris, or Joe Norcera. If you do feel that those opinion pieces need to be there then Bob Drummond (Bloomberg) and Liz Moyer (Forbes) should have links to their articles which diametrically oppose the viewpoints of the above mentioned journalists should be listed as well. Both Bob and Liz think that Naked shorts can damage stock prices by dragging them downwards through illegal manipulation.

Well done so far! It is difficult to get the facts straight on such a loaded topic. Also, much of the debate has to do with alleged facts regarding the current situation. These so-called facts and their interpretation will, of course, change. My feeling is that the entry as it is gives a fair representation of many aspects, but is not always 100% precise. It is my belief that precision is the only way to deal with advocates of the different factions.

Missing, I think, is the clear distinction between legal naked short selling and illegal naked short selling. Naked short selling is in general illegal; however, market makers are exempted from the general rule, and are the only ones allowed to short naked for the purpose of maintaining a market. 'Bonafide' is a word that is used in this context by the SEC, I think; you can look it up. Many claim that the market makers abuse this privilege; plus there are too many market makers. Some naked shorting also result from Fails to Deliver (FTD's). Temporary FTD's occur for many legitimate reasons, as the SEC is eager to point out (they have a list of reasons). Adversaries claim that the real problem is that permanent FTD's occur on a large scale for reasons other than the ones listed by the SEC, making them illegal. The SRO's like the SEC deny this vehemently, of course: it is their job. Looking at the Reg SHO list makes the SEC's version of the facts look doubtful: many companies are almost continually on this list with a hugh number of FTD's, suggesting there is a practice rather than the odd unavoidable problem. The section called “Its Effects” deals with supposed effects of illegal naked shorting. This is not made really clear, I think.

The section called “Controversy” deals compares legal short selling ('Some investors defend the practice . . .') and illegal short selling ('Critics contend . . .). The controversy is actually about how much illegal short selling is going on, and why the law is not enforced. The SRO's say there is not much illegal short selling, but will not disclose all numbers. Hmm. The specific numbers that have been requested by individuals and subsequently disclosed are high and are cause for concern. All this is easily corroborated, mind you. Furthermore, the 'anti-naked shorting forces' are against broker/dealers breaking the law and are asking the authorities to enforce the law. It is not as if they are asking for something out of the ordinary. The DTCC is allegedly operating outside of the law, by facilitating illegal naked shorting. The SRO's in general are not providing transparency. This is reason for concern. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to use the term 'anti-illegal-naked shorting forces' .

Perhaps the controversy legal/illegal could be a separate item. The rules for naked shorting are not under debate, the extent and effects of illegal market practices are.

Just my two bits. Keep up the good work!


No, the controversy is not between "legal and illegal naked short-selling" but between whether naked shorting is a widespread problem or not. "Legal and illegal" is a red herring that doesn't factor in to the current controversy.--Tomstoner 23:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that there isn't much to say about the size of the problem, as that data is kept secret - thus, any controversy is of a nature of angels on heads of pins. That the information is known, and is knowable, is easy - the DTCC (owned by the brokers) and the SEC know it - but they aren't telling. So no controversy, as no way to test any hypothesis.

As to the idea that the "counterfeiting" aspect is controversial, I have a simple thought experiment: When a naked short sale occurs, the seller fails to deliver the share to the buyer - and yet the transaction is not broken, rather, the NSCC (wholly owned by the DTCC) will provide a share from the Stock Borrow Program to deliver to the buyer - whose broker then redeposits that share right back into the anonymous lending pool, as though it never left. Thus, one legitimate share leaves an IOU with the original owner, and his share goes to the new buyer - only the old owner is never informed that he has just lost his real share. What is left in its place - the IOU - is not a share, has no voting rights, none of the rights that ARE the value of a genuine share - and yet it is treated in the system as a genuine share.

Can anyone think of a word for a facsimile that is falsely represented as genuine?

This is how the Stock Borrow Program creates IOUs/entitlements to shares, in excess of the outstanding authorized shares of a company, unbeknownst to the company, the buyers, the shareholders. Thus, it is entirely possible for a company to have 100 million shares authorized, and a short interest of 30 million, and then another 40 million of naked shorted shares. Only all 170 million "shareholders" believe they own shares - they paid real money for them, after all, and their brokerage statement indicates they have shares, so they must, right? Can anyone think of a word for the creation of 70 million more shares than the company has authorized, all represented to shareholders as genuine?

See how it gets weird quickly? Wall Street has created a situation where the rules are different than anywhere else. Creating stock whole cloth is not really counterfeiting, although it has every element thereof. Hence the cognitive dissonance between the pro and anti naked short selling camps. The pro is typically folks who benefit financially from the practice (the industry or their cronies) whereas the anti camp is usually shareholders, academics, regulators.

Odd, no? Bobobrien 06:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)bobobrien

Short selling does indeed increase the supply of shares of a company, but that doesn't make it analogous to counterfeiting shares. Banks and other lenders increase the money supply by lending their depositors' money to borrowers; when the borrowers use the money to purchase real goods they effectively become "short" money, in the sense that they win when inflation occurs and money becomes less valuable, and lose if deflation occurs (or inflation is lower than expected). No one would describe that money as counterfeit.

The banking analogy breaks down to an extent with naked shorting (as well as with the selling of, for example, S&P 500 futures, which, while almost precisely analogous to naked shorting the stocks underpinning the future in question, has so far not attracted so much as a whisper of dissent), but the counterfeiting is still a far worse one; the naked short seller still has all the risks as a borrower of stock, whereas a counterfeiter would simply collect the cash proceeds from the stock sale and walk away. The naked short seller also faces additional buy-in risk, of course. It's also worth noting that your description of why short selling is questionable does not strongly distinguish between short sellers who have and who have not located a borrow.

There are certainly problems caused by short selling and naked short selling, as well as issues unique to naked shorting, but they are rather subtle. The fact that short sellers keep the price of stocks lower than they otherwise would be is actually a benefit for small, buy-and-hold investors, who pay a lower price for the same dividend stream. Auction theory suggests that investors would be overpaying for stocks without short-sellers, because of a phenomenon known colloquially as the "winner's curse;" when there are many people who want to buy a limited quantity of a particular asset, those who end up buying it are almost always those who have most grossly overestimated its fair value. This could only lead to lower returns over the long run for investors.

Even more frenetic traders aren't noticeably harmed by shorting stock, as they on average buy and sell their shares at lower prices for no net difference.

Really, beyond nebulous and usually unsubstantiated claims of investors being hurt by "market manipulation" (which, when it does occur, is most likely to occur in thinly traded stocks that people should be staying the heck away from to begin with, and is illegal quite separately from naked shorting), opponents of naked shorting often seem at a loss to quantify the harm caused by the practice. It certainly isn't wholly benign, though.

Perhaps the most troubling issue concerning short selling and especially naked short selling is voting. Bobobrien's hypothetical company believes there are only 100 million shares out there with the right to vote, but the owners of the company collectively have 170 million voting shares. Theoretically, clearing firms (the equivalent of banks in the lending analogy) are supposed to scrupulously track the shares they have lent out and not allow their customers to vote lent-out shares, but they frequently do not, leading to presumably innocent yet still inappropriate voting. This will usually not result in the company having, say, a 110% voting turnout, due to the low percentage of shareholders with the right to vote that end up doing so (a serious problem in its own right, one much more serious than the one being discussed here in my opinion), but is at the very least troubling. This makes selling short seem less like banks increasing the money supply and more like the dead voting in Chicago. It is an even worse problem with naked shorting because there is no lending clearing firm involved that could even potentially keep the "vote supply" from expanding.

I believe this problem could best be solved by more vigorously enforcing existing regulations that prevent lent-out shares from being voted, as well as emulating European exchanges in having forced buy-ins some time after the seller of a stock fails to deliver, which gives him time to locate a borrow or buy back the shares.

Anyway, just wanted to thow my two cents into the ring about the practice. More on topic, the article itself seems pretty good, with the exception that it doesn't mention that market makers on an exchange such as the NASDAQ or Arca are legally allowed to naked-short.--Son of Scholes 05:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

About the Illegal Naked Short Facts

Btw, the previous entry was mine. I was not logged in.

You're still not. --Anonymous


My Two Cents

I think the current page is OK. However, no mention is made of the wild conspiracy allegations being made by these people. --Tomstoner 23:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Adding and identifying critics. I don't understand all the mush and hairsplitting that's been posted on this. The article is fine. Bye.--Tomstoner 05:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Illegal vs. widespread problem?

Surely if it were a widespread problem, that would imply illegality?

The bonafide market making exemptions for legal naked shorting are by definition not a problem.

So, naked short selling itself is not necessarily a problem.

Illegal naked short selling is a problem, because it can only exist is a weakly managed system. The unanswered question remains, just how widespread is it: big problem, or small problem?

I would still consider splitting the formal situation (SEC etc.) from the alleged situation (the debate).

Anyways, good luck; this is my last post to y'all. Unless there are questions ;-)

Zilcstra -- logged in, but perhaps not visible as such. Tue Feb 21 00:48:22 CET 2006


The article is fine.--Tomstoner 05:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Since this is a contentious issue...

And since philosophical bias has trickled in here in both camps. I have deleted every statement that,

  • Is not fact based
  • Just opinion
  • Alleged
  • Not an effect of naked short selling
  • He said/She said (not an effect)
  • Can not be verified from a reputable source or to whom the quote or action is being attributed to

So it severely shortens the "Effects" section, keeps it fact based and keeps the philosophy out of it. I think this is the only true fair way to describe the effects, and not something else.

If someone wants to start an "Examples or famous quotes" sections, a lot that has been deleted would fit there.--tom 08:18, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Is that an actual SEC quote? It reads like a composite. That's a no-no. But you did a good job, taking out everything reflecting reality. and now it reads like the back of a cereal box. Good work. --Tomstoner 17:49, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It's a real SEC quote, quoted from the SEC's REG SHO description. I'm sorry it reads dry, but done any other way on this topic will just infalme one side or another and there will be no end to it.

However, we can add other sections, such as "Examples" "Media Coverage" "Grass roots movements.." etc., "Regulatory and Legal actions" or whatever.

But anything added, needs to belong in it's section and be true and verifiable. --tom 19:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, well you ruined the page and I don't have time to fix your damage. cheers.--Tomstoner 19:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


I also changed the order of topics, without changing the content. controversy should come first followed by any responses to the contriversy, not the other way around--tom 19:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


Tomstoner, I only left in factual information and took everything out that people are griping about one way or the other and that is clearly commentary and does not fir in the section. For instance, neither what Martha Stewart of Overstock say or do nor what Time or Businessweek journalists say, are effects of naked short selling. Those are opinions or controversies, etc...--tom 19:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Page Hijacked

That's all I have to say. I'm done here -- no time to fix. Page has been hijacked and turned into a polemic, all balance removed. Nuff said. Maybe a knowledgeable person can fix. I don't have time to baby sit this one and do reverts when my fixes are unfixed. --Tomstoner 21:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Only The Facts will do

  • What remaining information is not correct or fact based?
  • Only verifiable facts remain to ensure this is NOT turned into a polemic
  • Allegations, beliefs, statements, etc are what will turn this into a polemic, that is why I removed them all.--tom 22:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the unsourced SEC quote. Footnote it or it stays out.

I have time now only to fix that much damage. When I have more time I'll see if I can fix the rest of the poorly written, biased mess this page has become. bye. --Tomstoner 04:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


Whatever you put in, make sure it is factual and footnoted, otherwise it'll be gone in short order.

Journalist articles, opinion letters, statements, etc are not facts. Only links and quotes from the law, rules, SEC, NASD, DTCC are considered facts. Everything else will turn this into a polemic.

Anyone can read the raw information here and make up their own mind. Wiki si not a forum.--71.106.230.124 13:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I have also removed the link to Jeff Mathews and the other article - both are commentary and opinion and not facts, ertainly ont regulators, the section inder which they were posted.--tom 13:19, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Outrageous! That "SEC quote" before "however" is a lengthy description of why naked shorting probably ISN'T the cause of a stock's decline. It goes out unless you want the whole SEC description in toto. --Tomstoner 15:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I substituted the actual language of the SEC brief for the inaccurate paraphrase somebody slobbed in there. Also, since we must remain "fact based" at all costs, I removed a quote from the anti-shorting website that said, inaccurately, that the substitutes or whatever were "counterfeit" shares. After all, just the facts, ma'am! --Tomstoner 16:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


The section from which the SEC describes the "effects", describes several other possible reasons why the prices of shares decline. IF you want to start a WIKI article on Pump and Dump schemes or unlisted companies, etc...go ahead. When the SEC mentions naked short selling it is the exact quote.

It is a valid, correct and exact quote and comes from the SEC. It stays.--tom 17:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The opinion pieces by jounalists have been removed. These are not facts, just opinions. We do not want to turn this into a polemic.--tom 17:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, right. Just quote the part that favors you.

This was a Q&A. Question: Did my stock go down because of naked shortselling. You quote HALF the answer.

Either the whole quote goes in or none. --Tomstoner 17:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


We're not talking about the many other reasons of why a stock goes up or down. The answer in the SEC's Q&A gives a lists of MANY OTHER REASONS of why stocks go up or down, INCLUDING naked short selling, as teh quote clearly states. This is the SEC's description on the efect of naked short selling, not mine or anyone else's.

The OTHER reasons the SEC gives for price fluctuations have nothing to do with naked short selling, so they have no place here.--tom 17:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


Selective Quotations Skew the POV

Of course the other reasons belong here. The SEC provided a FULL answer. You just put in the part of the answer that supports your point of view. --Tomstoner 17:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The Section is "Effects of naked shorting"

The Section is "Effects of naked shorting" NOT the many other reasons for price fluctuations of stocks. The question in the Q&A is :

"Is naked short selling the reason my stock has lost value?" The answer :

  • "There are many reasons why a stock may decline in value." from the same SEC answer

and as it pertains to Naked Short Selling further down :

  • Naked short selling, however, can have negative effects on the market. Fraudsters may use naked short selling as a tool to manipulate the market. Market manipulation is illegal.29 The SEC has toughened its rules and is vigilant about taking actions against wrongdoers.30 Fails to deliver that persist for an extended period of time may result in a significantly large unfulfilled delivery obligation at the clearing agency where trades are settled.

This WIKI article on naked short selling is not about,

  • "If many people want a stock (demand is high), then the price will rise. If a few people want a stock (demand is low), then the price will fall." from the same SEC answer
  • And on and on like things above that have nothing to do with naked short selling at all. The SEC page is linked and anyone can read up on the full text.

It is factual quote from the SEC related directly yo naked short selling. Do not delete factual and relevant information.--tom 18:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Do not delete factual links

The deletion of factual external links is a violation of WIKI policy. I ask this stop. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tommytoyz (talk • contribs) 19:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's not. Please see our policy on external links. If we just googled for "Naked short selling" and put all the hits in our "External links", it would overwhelm the article. We should limit ourselves to two types of links: (1) significant references used when creating article content, and (2) external links which go in more depth than is necessary here in a reasonably neutral manner. (ESkog)(Talk) 21:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Third Opinion

I think the SEC quote is a little long, but every idea presented in it should be stated here (including the other factors that can cause a stock to decline). Is it really so impossible to present a summary that's just a paragraph or two long, and then include a link to the entire reply? Kafziel 19:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


THe SEC quote is indeed too long and is mostly about things unrelated to naked short selling. --tom 20:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Unrelated to naked short selling, yes, but not unrelated to the reason stocks drop, which is what the quoted question is asking. A simpler solution to summarizing it might be simply to remove the entire SEC quote altogether and replace it with one from somewhere else that is answered in a more relevant way. I'm sure there are other stock websites out there with advice on the same subject. Kafziel 21:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately this is a very contentious issue and so the only way to keep it straight is to only use quotes from the authorities. Everywhere else naked short selling is written up, it's full of opinion.

My suggestion is to just add the context like this.

Effects

  • In answering the question of whether or not naked short selling depresses stock prices, the SEC answers that, "there are many reasons why a stock may decline in value." Specifically, "Naked short selling, however, can have negative effects on the market. Fraudsters..." etc..

Does this seem fair? --tom 21:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if I'd consider the SEC any more unbiased than other sources, but if it's important to you that it be used a major source, then why not just put the whole answer in there? There's really no limit to how much information you can put into a Wikipedia article. If it's too long and boring, people can just skip it and go on to the next section. (Besides, something tells me anyone interested in short selling will have the patience to read the whole thing.) Kafziel 21:27, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted the article back to the previous text, in line with the third opinion that the full answer, or summary thereof, should be presented. It was changed so that an entire paragraph is repeated. I will then try to summarize the entire SEC paragraph to make more concise. The article is generally a mess, and is far too weighted in favor of the anti-shorting viewpoint, but that will be a start. One problem is that it is laden down with references to "FOI requests" and other dross that regulators have decisively rejected as utterly meaningless. --Tomstoner 22:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


Since the entire quote is now restored, though if someone is interested they can merely click on the link and read not just the quoted section but the entire SEC page. Of course this all makes for unwieldly reading and not the best of WIKI pages, but it can not be contested either.--tom 23:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Factual text, quotes and links are being delted

You have been warned not to delete factual links and quotes. To explain your actions, explain your claim that "references to "FOI requests" and other dross that regulators have decisively rejected as utterly meaningless. " Where did you see that? WHen has any regulator commented on the FOI data? Quote with link please.

Until then it will remain.

--tom 23:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Please stop the ad hominems and please note the warning on your page.

I obtained a third opinion which agrees that the full quote should go in. The context of the full quote, that it was a question posed to answer the question in the Level 2 head, has been removed. I am restoring it.

One paragraph from that full quote is duplicated in the previous section. I'm removing it. Please stop reverting that deletion.

The FTD numbers linked are meaningless according to the regulators, the DTCC and SEC too I think both saying FTDs usually do NOT mean naked shorting. This page is already dreadfully written and contains a confusing array of statistics. I am removing it. --Tomstoner 16:03, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The Page is a Mess

Also the the SEC's explanation of the "substitutes" -- that it is a TERM FROM THE UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE ! -- has been removed. The page has been so messed up that I am going to have to revert back to the way it was before it was ripped to shreds. --Tomstoner 16:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

  • For what it's worth, I believe that Tomstoner's version of the page is better from both a writing perspective and an NPOV perspective. I think it does an adequate job of presenting factual information in an organized and balanced manner. Others should feel free to chime in here so that we can determine consensus. (ESkog)(Talk) 16:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree. The article is reasonably solid as it is right now and it's a good time for both parties to take a break and cool off by working on something else for a while. Kafziel 16:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


The removal and deletion of the SEC data and FOIA requests is the removal of facts. Why? The insertion of opinion pieces is better? I say we have to keep this factual and not keep inserting opinion pieces.

The constant deletion of my version by the same parties within a 24 period is considered vandalism, or so I'm told. Is this true? This was reported to me by Kafziel. --tom 01:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

  • The rule is that any one user may not revert to the same version 3 times within a 24-hour period. If you find anyone violating this rule, you should report them to the three-revert rule noticeboard and follow the format there. (ESkog)(Talk) 03:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

RfC reply

The only problem I see with the article is its sloppy presentation of source material. This article needs to be divided into two sections, one for, one against NSS. These sections should separately summarize cited viewpoints on each side. The situation is much like in a U.S. presidential debate, where candidates are vehemently opposed to each other, but are not allowed to interrupt each others' presentations. Unsourced material needs to be verified as per WP:V or deleted. After sources get verified and arguments get presented in a logical format, I think the POV issue will work itself out. Best of luck - Cdcon  07:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Then this article may be a waste of time. Applying WP:V -- and I have to confess I hadn't looked at it -- would essentially exclude the entire anti-naked shorting viewpoint, because that is stated principally in websites not allowed by Wikipedia policy, at least as I understand it. Why not just leave well enough alone. --Tomstoner 21:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Tomstoner, thanks for the comment on my Talk page, I'll do what good here I can. To you and anyone else who might be interested, I have a blog, and my two most recent entries there (today, March 4, and yesterday, March 3) deal with issues raised here, although the blog as a whole deals with a lot else -- pretty much whatever crosses my mind on a given day. Anyway, feel free to chat about this subject there if you'd like. cfaille.blog-city.com

--Christofurio 20:27, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

You're very welcome. Incidentally I see that there has been some anonymous IDs packing the page with technical gobbledygook. I've reverted.--Tomstoner 14:55, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Tomstoner, what was gobbledygook? It was a reference to the RegSHO FAQ published by the SEC. It speaks directly to Naked Short Selling (as opposed to the standard Short Selling FAQ). http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/keyregshoissues.htm. What is your issue with it?

It's all been discussed before, ad nauseum. See above. P.S. Sign your posts.--Tomstoner 00:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Does the SEC control this website? If I wanted the official SEC position on naked short-selling, I would go to [1]. The problem is, the SEC won't share the FTD data, even in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. If the SEC is failing to enforce the law (as they have many, many times before), we have no way to know.

Folks, there is a grassroots movement to force the SEC to enforce laws on the book and end abusive naked short-selling altogether. The SEC is not about to admit it is a problem, because it is a problem they were supposed to prevent. But their grandfathering of pre-Reg-SHO FTDs amounts to an admission of their failure to control the problem. Why else would they grandfather prior violations?

It is completely one-sided and non-neutral to give 80% of the article to the SEC's position on the issue. The SEC is a party in the dispute, and this site should not favor any party in any dispute, particularly not the US Government, unless this is a government-controlled site.

Increasingly disappointed in Wikipedia, --68.88.193.14 04:47, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

68.88.193.14, this is what I posted in the Controversy section that Tomstoner removed (and called vandalism!). I see NO reference to this in the preceeding text.

"One particular area of controversy raised by opponents of Naked Short Selling involves some text within the RegSHO FAQ published by the SEC. In particular, the following excerpts:

IV. A. 7. F. Grandfathering Under Regulation SHO

The requirement to close-out fail to deliver positions in threshold securities that remain for 13 consecutive settlement days does not apply to positions that were established prior to the security becoming a threshold security. This is known as "grandfathering." For example, open fail positions in securities that existed prior to the effective date of Regulation SHO on January 3, 2005 are not required to be closed out under Regulation SHO. The grandfathering provisions of Regulation SHO were adopted because the Commission was concerned about creating volatility where there were large pre-existing open positions. The Commission will continue to monitor whether grandfathered open fail positions are being cleaned up under existing delivery and settlement guidelines or whether further action is warranted.

Opponents point to this paragraph as an admission that Naked Short Selling exists in such extremes in our markets that forcing settlement would cause undesirable volatility.

V. 11. Can I obtain fails information?

Currently, threshold lists include the name and ticker symbol of securities that meet the threshold level on a particular settlement date. Some investors have requested that the SROs provide more detailed information for each threshold security, including the total number of fails, the total short interest position, the name of the broker-dealer firm responsible for the fails, and the names of the customers of responsible brokers and dealers responsible for the short sales. The fails statistics of individual firms and customers is proprietary information and may reflect firms' trading strategies. The release of this information could be used to engage in unlawful upward manipulation of the price of the securities in order to "squeeze" the firms improperly.

Opponents argue that this paragraph expresses evidence that some firms use Naked Short Selling as a trading strategy rather then just a tool to maintain liquidity in a security as is allowed by the SEC."

I also added a link to the RegSHO FAQ written by the SEC in the reference section and Tomstoner removed that calling it SPAM?!!? Can anyone else comment as to why my text was in appropriate?

Mfv 07:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


Reply

I removed it because it is grossly unencyclopedic and presents a one-sided view of the issue, putting an anti-shorting spin on a lot of highly technical mumbo-jumbo without any sourcing whatsoever. And no, taking an ambiguous sentence from an SEC document and highlighting it, and then saying what one thinks it means, is not proper sourcing.

This is an encyclopedia and personal research into this issue does not belong here. --Tomstoner 20:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm very surprised that the 'article' section 'External Links' does not contain links to the 'Regulation SHO Threshold Security List' published by both the NYSE and NASDAQ of companies with excessive failures to deliver (FTD). This is the heart of the controversy; whether companies with long standing excessive failures to deliver, companies that are and have been on these lists for a long time, are being abusively naked shorted or not. Inasmuch as the SEC and DTCC will not release the actual numbers, nobody can really say one way or the other. The links are:

http://www.nyse.com/Frameset.html?displayPage=/threshold/ http://nasdaqtrader.com/aspx/regsho.aspx

There is much information contained at these linked pages, and they also contain links to relevant information. Not like the filtered content that appears on the 'article' page. As example, I find it most ingenuous that Tomstoner would indicate that personal research and or information without proper sourcing should not appear, when the Controversy section contains primarily one sided opinion. Just being a NYT columnist doesn't an expert witness make. His argument of small and microcap compaines flies in the face of having Delta Airlines (until delisting) et al on the list. People should look over the list and see for themselves just what types of companies qualify for inclusion.

63.96.70.230 22:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC) gekelly

Sur-Reply

Thank you I'm not called "ingenuous" very often but the rule prohibiting original research is a product of Wikipedia's ingenuity not mine. --Tomstoner 23:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Tom, your actions are curious. I'd be happy to redo the work but it was taken verbatim from the SEC so not sure how I could do better. How you interpret the text as ambiguous is beyond me but accepting that, and whether you like it or not, it is an area of controversy that exists in the opponent's community (and I tried to relay that in my words). That you allowed (or provided) a quote from a proponents view from a NYT journalist and not one from the SEC [removing personal attack per WP:RPA].

Also, in removing the link to the RegSHO FAQ from the SEC (which, btw, supports their (proponent) position) and calling it SPAM is beyond puzzling.

I agree with gekelly on posting the RegSHO lists. They are an official resource and important.

Short of restoring/deleting/restoring again, I would like to find a mediator and/or escalate as we obviously disagree here. --Mfv 00:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


I am not going to get into a debate with you over this. All the changes you propose are clearly in violation of WP:V and WP:OR, not to mention generally fall afoul of WP:NPOV.

As for administrator intervention -- I have just made such a request. Please cease further editing until we have received further input on this pls.

Also I am going to have to ask you to direct comments at the content and not the editor. See WP:NPA.

I request that new editors please read the above links as well as WP:EQ, and related links on that page, before making further contributions to either the page itself or this talk page. This is a general comment, not directed to any particular user. --Tomstoner 13:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

What is the status from the administrator(s)? I noticed that it was legal to quote from the SEC when asking "Does Naked Shorting Drive Stock Prices Down?" (they go on to say there are many reasons for a stock to go down...) yet apparently when I quoted them from the RegSHO it suddenly becomes a violation. Strange indeed. Mfv 01:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The SEC quote you cite addressed the central issue in plain English. The Reg SHO quote you cite addressed an aspect of the issue in highly technical gobbledygook prose, to which was added a one-sided spin without sourcing. --Tomstoner 13:59, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

This is perhaps one of the most polarizing topics in the markets today yet 95% of the text on this wiki denies it exists or is a problem. All opponent comments are concluded with "but such and such denies it happens" yet the proponent views are left unchallenged and treated as undisputed fact. The words used in my prose are the exact ones found in the article as written today (threshhold, securities, settlement). Your term "gobbledygook" is a direct miscategorization. --Mfv 21:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I've redacted per WP:RPA, because my request to cease personal attacks was ignored. I toned down some of my own remarks as well.--Tomstoner 15:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Tom, editting the discussing page is a bit much. 'Direct miscategorization' or 'Curious' is not anymore a personal attack then your words 'dross' or 'yeah whatever'. I will work on an Arbitration request this weekend. Be advised that you will be on it. --Mfv 19:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


Concerns Re Sourcing & Personal Attacks

Editing talk pages is permitted as per the guideline I cited, and I toned down some of my own remarks as well. However, rather than get into a tussle over that, I'll await adminstrator intervention, if any, on this whole issue of the personal remarks.

As for arbitration -- I am all for that. However, it seems far too early for an arbitration, given that the previous steps have not been completed, but if that can happen now I certainly think it is a good idea.

As for your remark that "you will be on it" (meaning "on the arbitration," whatever that means) again I am going to draw your attention to the warning on your user page that remarks directed against other editors are against Wikipedia policy. Personal remarks seem to be a constant, ongoing problem concerning with this page, as has been noted in the past by other editors.

There is, incidentally, an overriding issue that needs to be addressed that was raised by User:CdCon. While I objected to your added material because it is original research and unencyclopedic, I think the article overall may very well be objectionable because of sourcing (as per his comment -- please refer back to that above on the talk page). I think it may well be that that both sides of the argument are not well sourced through veriable sources as required by Wikipedia.

Were a wholesale rewrite to be done, and if the sourcing were to be verified as per Wikipedia policy, then I am not sure there would be much left to the article, particularly from the "anti-shorting" viewpoint. Apart from the Time article, there does not appear to be too much in the way of proper sourcing that can be cited. Again, it needs to be kept in mind that raw data is not allowed. That is not my policy but Wikipedia's, so please don't flame me for pointing that out.

For example, there is no doubt whatsoever that raw lists of "fails to deliver" would be original research not permitted by Wikipedia policy. However, and by the same token, the SEC Q&A might well be objectionable for the same reason -- original research. However, since the SEC Q&A is written in plain language and designed for a general reader, and is from a neutral source of widely acknowledged reliability, I would argue that it would not fall under that category.

Rather than go back and forth on this, I would personally prefer to do nothing until some fresh eyes come in and look at this page and, particularly, the sourcing issue. Fair enough? --Tomstoner 18:02, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

A few things:

If you look at the arbitration rules, one of the prerequesites is to notify the participants that they will be part of it. I was merely doing so.

The "rules" for edditing here seem to be conflicting:

1) On the one hand my comments are said to be improperly sourced yet they were taken verbatim from the SEC (If there were a standard format that you would be happy with I would be inclined to do it provided the content remained stable). They then are said to be "gobbledygook" which is highly subjective and confusing since the same words are used in another SEC quotes in this article. As previously stated, I could alter the text but then you mentioned above: "Is that an actual SEC quote? It reads like a composite. That's a no-no. But you did a good job, taking out everything reflecting reality. and now it reads like the back of a cereal box. Good work.". Also, you noted above one must quote the SEC in it's entirety: "Outrageous! That "SEC quote" before "however" is a lengthy description of why naked shorting probably ISN'T the cause of a stock's decline. It goes out unless you want the whole SEC description in toto.". So hopefully you can understand my confusion on the proper presentation here. Do I rewrite it to make it clearer or maintain the quote verbatim? Your suggestion is to simply keep it out which I disagree with entirely as many opponents question these 2 excerpts.

2) Someone above mentions: "Journalist articles, opinion letters, statements, etc are not facts. Only links and quotes from the law, rules, SEC, NASD, DTCC are considered facts. Everything else will turn this into a polemic." Which again is puzzling, since Fred Norris from the NYT is allowed to give his opinion for the proponent's view on this article!

My point is that this topic is highly charged and there are varying views as one can probably guess. The article conveys the proponent view and defense almost in totality. I made an attempt to relay why it's confusing in the Controversy Section from the opponents standpoint and have tried to provide direct sources to the topic from the SEC itself and not any of the other external opinions. That it has been blankly removed and called vandalism (as oppose to commenting on what can be done to alter the text for clarity or satisfaction) is simply not right. --Mfv 11:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I objected to the SEC quote that you mention in 1) because it was out of context. You needed the preceding material to put it in context. Since the whole thing is written in plain language and designed for public consumption, I think it is proper to put in the article.

The other passage you mention was a lengthy quote on the issue from the SEC on "grandfathering," which is a technical issue. You added a comment on that which was unsourced. The two are like night and day. One is a kind of SEC digest written in simple terms and the other is original data. The fact that they are from same source is beside the point.

On 2) that was written "before my time" by someobdy else. It is not a correct statement of Wikipedia policy. Frankly I only became fully aware of the sourcing policy myself when it was pointed out by CDCon.

My "vandalism" remark was incorrect (as has been forcefully pointed out to me!). No, the problem is that it was original research and that you added an unsourced comment.

Anyway, I appreciate that we can discuss this civilly but I would suggest that you take seriously my concerns re original research. Don't you see my point on that? Is there any verifiable, proper (by Wikipedia standards) source that discusses this grandfathering issue? The TIME piece, for example? --Tomstoner 16:00, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Tom, I would much rather try and work this through amongst ourselves. I suppose I don't understand the original research thing since the SEC is already quoted in this article (what makes one original and another not?). Even Wikipedia admits there is a fine line. I am trying to stick to official points (not putting down TIME mag in any way) since I realize this topic is so charged. It just so happens, opponents question these particular excerpts. I have not seen any good counter arguments to Grandfathering aside from message board banter. Feel free to shoot over any links you might have that says otherwise. There are some academic studies to strategic FTD's worth noting at www.businessjive.com under the Byrne interview. Regarding context, if you let me know what other part of the SEC statements would inject better context into the mix, I would be willing to discuss. --Mfv 22:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


The Source Thing

Well, we have no choice but to reach consensus. I have asked the experienced user who first raised the sourcing issue to come over and give his input.

Re sources -- you see, I don't think that www.businessjive.com would be a proper source under the Wikipedia guidelines. However, the studies cited on the site may be another matter entirely.

The "verifiability" requirement is a big obstacle to putting together this article, as it would seemm, at least to me, to pretty well knock out the vast majority of websites and blogs that deal with this issue from both sides! Let's face it, there's no way that SanityCheck or the Jeff Matthews blog could possibly be considered meeting the verifiability standard.

There's nothing wrong with official sources, and obviously you see them all over Wikipedia. Historical documents etc. etc. The problem is that here you have a technical issue here. If you post lists of FTDs or language from a regulation, such as the one re grandfathering, you are posting an opaque piece of writing that I really don't think you can put in an encyclopedia. Also it seems to fall afoul of the ban on original research. People on one side of the issue feel the documentation, lists etc. mean something, but if that is just expressed on a website or chat room, then I think you have a sourcing issue.

On the other hand, if you have an SEC document like the FAQ that is written in plain language, and is understandable by just reading it, then I can't see a sourcing problem with that. It isn't raw data and it is from a source that I believe could be considered verifiable.

Frankly I have not seen Grandfathering even addressed anywhere but the message boards. Why not look at the verifiability page here and see what you can find that would meet that criteria? --Tomstoner 00:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Tom, I admit your argument has me at a loss. I don't know how much clearer one can get with the sentence "The grandfathering provisions of Regulation SHO were adopted because the Commission was concerned about creating volatility where there were large pre-existing open positions. " for excerpt 1 and "The fails statistics of individual firms and customers is proprietary information and may reflect firms' trading strategies." for excerpt 2. I have tried to acknowledge that this is a point of controversy (by putting it in the controversy section) and have asked you for guidance on how to better add context. The paragraphs are independent sections in the FAQ. Let's face it, this area of the market is complex (thus the confusion surrounding it) since the keepers of the information aren't exactly forthcoming. The whole DTCC Stock Borrowing program and the (undated) future's contracts it can generate would make people's head spin (plus it uses undocumented formulas for certain decisions). Until the SEC releases less ambiguous prose or proceeds to clarify these statements, we are stuck calling it, at best, Controversy. That it is suppressed entirely as a result, seems wrong to me. --Mfv 09:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, but as I've indicated several times before, these two statements ("The grandfathering provisions. . ." and "The fails statistics. . ." ) only have relevancy to this article when you spin them via the following two sweeping, unsourced commeents:

1) "Opponents point to this paragraph as an admission that Naked Short Selling exists in such extremes in our markets that forcing settlement would cause undesirable volatility."

2) "Opponents argue that this paragraph expresses evidence that some firms use Naked Short Selling as a trading strategy rather then just a tool to maintain liquidity in a security as is allowed by the SEC."

These two issues -- the SEC "admission" and the "evidence," need to be boiled down into proper form and sourced. It's not enough to quote an SEC document and then just say, "here, 'opponents' say they are incriminating." --Tomstoner 13:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I keep on talking about "verifiable," and by that I am referring to WP:V. Just so you don't think I'm making it up! Hey, I'm fairly new here too and, reading that statement of official policy I scratched my head and said to myself, "What in this article can possibly pass muster with this policy!"

Note the internal links within WP:V, in particular WP:NOR. Ditto my reaction when I read this policy.--Tomstoner 15:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I find it fascinating that so much ado has arisen over a spectacularly rhetorical discussion. Naked short selling as exactly nothing to do with short selling. Short selling is legal. Failing to deliver stock, unless you are a market maker acting in a bona-fide manner, is not legal, and violates Section 9 of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act (go read it) as well as UCC 8, and 15c6-1, and 17A. Just because the slang terminology is to call the manipulative practice of selling stock and not delivering it naked short selling, doesn't mean that we have to nod our heads along with it. Short selling is legal. Failing to deliver what a buyer paid for is not, unless you are a bona-fide market maker acting in a bona-fide capacity.

Long sales can fail for nefarious as well as legitimate reasons, and can be "naked short selling" - but obviously trades marked long are not short sales. Thus, a misnomer. And clearly a confusing one.

I've given up trying to bring balance to this, as clearly a cherry-picking approach has been introduced. A 3 paragraph description of penny stock fraud has as much relevance to failing to deliver stock as a soliloquy on bicycles. That the SEC, in the many thousands of words it chose to print in its missive, elected to editorialize on the perspective of one of the commissioners that much of the noise is as a result of disgruntled investors and stock fraudsters, is opinion - nothing else. To pretend that thinking upright bipeds would view it differently diminishes the value of Wikepedia, and converts it into a bully pulpit of sorts.

Strip this down to its essentials. Naked short selling is a euphemism which is often confused with legal short selling. It is in actuality failing to deliver shares of stock, whether sold short, or long. Some is innocent, some is legal, and some isn't either. The controversy surrounding the issue revolves around the size of the third category. All the attempts to justify its effects as good or bad are noise - the only ones trying to argue the pro case are those financially benefiting from the practice. Again, it is failing to deliver stock that was paid for. All the rest is rationalization as to why it is good not to deliver it, or why not delivering it offsets other frauds.

But until the article actually describes the actual thing that is happening accurately, it is useless as a reference.

By the way, failing to deliver stock that someone paid for isn't controversial. It isn't a trading strategy. When done deliberately beyond 13 days, it is stock manipulation - 10b5. No controversy. All the blah blah to try to conceal or deflect does you no good service, and again, denigrates your integrity of the site.

The SEC's rant is pure hyperbole, and as self-serving as anything to come out of thesanitycheck. Failing to deliver is against SEC rules, except for market makers, when it is done deliberately.

Why is that so hard to grasp or articulate?Bobobrien 07:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)bob obrien

Perhaps you can suggest some sources that conform with WP:V and WP:NOR that could help in creating this article? Also I should point out that Wikipedia articles are not personal essays. They draw on sources and require citations, particularly on controversial issues. See WP:CITE. --Tomstoner 13:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Just The Facts Without All The FUD

What is a naked short sale?

Short selling is a bet that a company’s stock will fall. In a legitimate short sale, a real investor sells stock they borrowed, hoping to buy it back at a lower price to replenish the lender. They take the risk that if a stock goes up instead of down, they must buy back in at a loss.

In a naked short sale, the seller sells stock they have not borrowed, and does not intend to borrow, and then pockets the proceeds from the sale. Naked short sellers have built an elaborate infrastructure they use to manipulate stocks - achieving spectacular gains at the expense of honest investors. The players are corrupt, well-organized industry insiders who often combine anonymous blogging, phony research reports, and crooked financial news reporters into orchestrated attacks to “short and distort” targeted companies. Company facts are twisted, skewed, and re-invented as a series of half-truths, creating the illusion that the companies and their management are unfocused - the intent is to create fear and doubt about the Company’s prospects, and to generate an endless need for management to respond to attacks, rather than tend to their business.

Billions of dollars in trades are left “unsettled” (undelivered) daily in the US capital markets. This is called ‘Failure to Deliver’ (FTD). The investor’s account is debited the cost of the stock they wish to buy, their account statement is updated to show that they bought it, but the underlying stock is not delivered - it “fails to be delivered.” The average shareholder has no idea this has taken place, as their account statement (really just a piece of paper generated by their broker) assures them they “own” genuine “shares.” This is a kind of fraud. Naked short selling accounts for a large amount of ‘Failure to Deliver’ positions, and it’s a disgraceful commentary on just how badly corrupt Wall Street insiders have abused investors’ trust. It really is a case of “the fox guarding the henhouse.” Consider this: how do you think the legal system would treat you if you sold something you didn’t own, and decided to never deliver it? Another way to describe this is to call it what it is - premeditated stealing. Worse, the problem of FTDs calls into question the issue of market integrity.

FTDs represent an attack on the fundamental fairness of the market. At the heart of a fair market is a respect for ‘supply and demand’. Once the supply side of the equation has been artificially manipulated, all bets are off as to the fairness of the marketplace. When there is no cap on the supply of shares -- because market participants are able to sell stock that they don't have, and which doesn’t exist -- prices are subject to downward manipulation. Increased supply overwhelms buyers and crushes the stock price or hampers appreciation.

In the past, our Company has successfully fought against many such onslaughts, marshalling the intestinal fortitude and management team necessary to prevail. Many firms, however, aren’t as fortunate, and have succumbed to these attacks, leading to the loss of jobs, income, investor gains, and the innovation that is a fundamental of the American economy. ”Attack of the Blogs” is a controversial cover story in last fall’s Forbes magazine, featuring our battle with this sort of shadow threat.

Ref: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1052257/000101376206000897/ex99.htm ~river

The above is taken verbatim from some company's press release, which it just happen to file with the SEC, as linked. Please don't post such lengthy, self-serving corporate missives in the talk page. They really serve no purpose and do not reflect material that can be inserted into the article. See WP:NOR, WP:CITE and WP:NPOV. --Tomstoner 18:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


Tombstoner- Correct. This is from a company that has experienced extreme naked shorting firsthand and probably is giving the most accurate definition of "naked short selling" we have here. Why do you continually try to shoot down any verifiably accurate explanation of this highly illegal practice which is stealing billions from individual investors. Only a naked short seller would be so reluctant to have the truth given here. Truth is what this venue should be all about. It's a shame that the truth and seriousnes of this practice is being so blatantly subverted by the editors here.~river

Please assume good faith on the part of other editors. Comments such as "only a naked short seller would be so recluctant to have the truth given here" are contary to WP:NPA. Also please be aware that entries require proper verification in accordance with WP:V. The applicable principal is "verifiability not truth." --Lastexit 21:44, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Is this NPOV, or properly sourced? "Some investors defend the practice as just another tool of the market, and caution against federal regulation. Naked short-sellers claim that they are enacting market pressure against overpriced and undertraded small-cap stocks. In the bubble of the 1990s, they argue that regulations against short-selling would have caused an even greater boom and bust." The quote is unsourced and misleadingly switches between naked short selling, and short selling. I don't quite understand how you can have one side of the argument say something is illegal, helpful, and doesn't occur -- all at the same time. I don't believe that there is any reputable source for this statement. Since Naked Shorting Selling is illegal, I doubt there are many people openly admitting they are doing it. Can this statement be removed or rewritten?

2. There are numerous sources for the idea that the SEC are the people who know how big of a problem this is (see here http://www.dtcc.com/Publications/dtcc/mar05/naked_short_selling.html). Could we include a statement that the SEC has not divulged the FTD numbers for individual stocks? [User:TheBoardWalkInAC]

No that paragraph was not adequately sourced. Good point. I added a footnote. On your second point, I think the issue of FTDs is dealt with already in the article sufficiently. Do you have a WP:V source that the failure to divulge FTD numbers is a bona fide issue?--Lastexit 00:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

1. The source you added was a commentary (or editorial) by one person who runs a web site that broadcasts how controversial it is (http://www.gary-weiss.com/). In my opinion that's not an objective source. He calls the people who disagree with him hoodlums on his web site. 2. I have no idea what bona fide issue means in this context. It's a plain and simple fact that the people who are supposed to enforce this law won't tell us how often it is broken. How about a comment that the SEC and DTCC give this (included quoted statement here) as the reason that they haven't disclosed how many shares are failed to deliver. If that's asking too much how about quoting the DTCC that it's a six billion a day issue -- is that premissable? Here are some additional issues: 3. The article on Murder has not been hijacked to discuss lawful killing (assisted suicide, the military, police, Hiroshima, etc.), why has that happened here? Would it be possible to have an article on Illegal Naked Shorting, that is the issue that is of concern to people. Currently the main focus of the article is legal activity, which is of no interest to anyone, and is a complete straw man. 4. The SEC refers to the consequences of Naked Shorting as causing a "Death Spiral" (see here [2]. This stands in opposition to Mr Weiss's opinion that it is helpful. Can the SEC's facts be included to counteract his commentary? 5. There are several articles written by far more reputable and objective sources than Mr Weiss, here are a couple one by the former head of the SEC, the other by a former commerce under-secretary under Pres. Clinton: [3] [4] Can their issues be added to the current events? --TheBoardWalkInAC 14:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[User:TheBoardWalkInAC]

I moved a cite that was already on the page. Please sign your posts with a tilde and please become acquainted with Wikipedia policies, in particular WP:NOV and WP:V, before posting in either the Talk pages or editing articles.--Lastexit 12:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay I fixed the signature on the article but I still have concerns that I would like the community to consider. All this information (five paragraphs) about Pump and Dump and Penny Stocks is totally unrelated to illegal activity. I haven't edited the article, though I have concerns about it. I understand that it is not normally considered WP:NPOV if one side's position is rebutted in-place rather than in a seperate section/paragraph. I notice that there is no section devoted to describing the position that Naked Short Selling is illegal, and specifically why this had turned into a controversy. I am totally open to a consensus process and just want people to consider whether accusing people who simply want illegal behavior to stop as being part of the Mafia belongs in a fair and objective summary of this issue. I also question whether articles (Gary Weiss) written with no sources or cites making outrageous claims constitutes a verifiable source according to WP:V. At the very least for sources 11 and 13 which are both Gary Weiss can we remove the "Some investors" language and attribute both quotes to him? --TheBoardWalkInAC 14:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The article is fine as it is, and is a compromise version reflecting all points of view hammered out after lengthy editing wars. The article is amply sourced and neutral in tone. You are a new editor, so I am trying to be patient with you, but your ranting is growing wearisome. The "Mafia" reference in the article is a secondary point so please stop harping on that. Please read WP:V and calm down and stop making inflammatory statements.--Lastexit 14:46, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually the Mafia reference is a secondary point to the article generally. As one of the edit warriors referenced in Lastexit's msg., I would that the article be left in peace. I would certainly take issue with your statement concerning Pump and Dump stock schemes and penny stocks being unrelated to criminal activity. That has been widely publicized. Read the articles in Wiki for further on that.
As for your point re footnotes 11 and 13, the source of both is the same article clearly allowed by WP:V. The fact that you dislike the writer of this article is not a reason to exclude it.--Mantanmoreland 15:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I never suggested that it be excluded or that I disliked him. He is a journalist though, and why exactly he's qualified to speak on securities law is not immediately obvious. I believe that the article doesn't adequately explain who he is, and how he is related to this issue. Once when he is quoted it says "Some investors" when it could say "Gary Weiss says". In the next sentence it says "they argue, regulations against short-selling" again without saying who "they" are. It seems to me that "Gary Weiss argues that regulations against naked short-selling" would be a more accurate quote -- but I would like to understand the rationale for why anyone thinks that the current langauge is best.

Possibly I jumped into this too quickly. Let me start with a very simple, and hopefully less controversial, question to start. When we say: "allegations of the anti-naked shorting movements", why is the word allegation used (since people have been convicted of naked shorting), what allegations are we referring to, and who/what are these movements mentioned?

Again please don't think I'm suggesting that anything get changed, I'm just trying to understand the rationale for what's here. --TheBoardWalkInAC 19:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Weiss again? This is now the third or fourth time this week I'm running into a Weiss vendetta. What is going on out there? We've already had one user banned and his sockpuppet banned too. Now this.
Your points have been addressed already more than once. I am not going to repeat myself. The article is neutral and well-sourced. Wiki is not a forum for agendas or personal grudges, and talk pages are not a place for pointless Usenet-style discussion and character assasination.--Lastexit 20:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Nothing I said has anything to do with you, and you do not have to reply just to say you're not going to post a meaningful reply. I'm here in good faith. If you have a pointer to where these specific (or related) questions have been addressed that would be great. Not surprisingly I don't find you labeling my questions as "character assassination" as convincing logical arguments. I quoted Mr Weiss's own web site. I'm greatly surprised that my question about why Mr Weiss is referred to as "Some investors" has been seen as such a great provocation. Your namn-calling and threat about banning me has been ignored with more than a little amusement. To repeat yet again I don't plan on changing anything unless a consensus develops that change is a good thing. --TheBoardWalkInAC 20:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point. This is a consensus article, hammered out after much expenditure of blood, sweat and tears. Your questions don't add anything and I agree that the sudden onslaught of new users hammering at one issue and person is odd. Lastexit is properly suspicious for the reason he mentioned. Ordinarily users are entitled to an assumption of good faith. However, here we have a situation in which new users have materialized concerned with a single issue and person, and engaging in Talk page debates, edit wars, page vandalism and personal attacks (not all this refers to you), all concerning one person and all after joining Wiki for a few hours. In such a situation WP:AGF does not apply. Just so you know. --Mantanmoreland 20:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess if you can't see why someone might feel having a response to allegations without including those allegations is not fair, then nothing else needs to be said. The only pages I've edited have been corrections -- mostly computer stuff. I worked on Wall Street in NYC for years, and I believe that I understand this issue on a deep level. Your points are valid. Clearly this is not turning into a good first step in my wiki career. Thanks for the advice! To be honest with you most of my other interests seems to be already very well written -- that's what brought me here. I'll give it a rest for now and stick with less contentious topics. Thanks for the well thought-out reply! --TheBoardWalkInAC 21:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
That's lovely. You do realize the point that was raised about people charging into Wikipedia as they have on this subject? This is not an uncommon occurrence and is dealt with harshly.--Mantanmoreland 21:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely I see that point. If you meant to imply that I should have been aware that many people were simultaneously bringing up Gary Weiss then I'm not sure how I should have known. Is there a place to check? In any case, I expect he loves the notoriety. My background is working on Wall Street. The fact that there are people supporting the idea that you must pay for something you don't receive just boggles my mind. In the bond/federal funds market (which is many times larger) -- that's not true. No delivery -- no payment. I expect that an issue that I have a lesser emotional attachment to (can be more objective about) will turn out to be a better choice to focus on. Thanks again for your patient reply! --TheBoardWalkInAC 22:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
My point was that this is the most transparent sockpuppet/meatpuppet situation I have ever stumbled upon. Oh, and spare us the agenda. --Mantanmoreland 22:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I was responding to your "comment" but most of it disappeared. I thought I had thanked you. Your response is totally uncalled for. Thanks again for your previous civil comments. I deleted all my previous comments.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheBoardWalkInAC (talk • contribs).
I've reverted. Do not remove comments from talk pages, including your own. You can edit them to remove inappropriate remarks, as I do all the time, but do not "blank" them entirely.--Mantanmoreland 22:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Naked shorting and prices

This article would probably benefit from a general update. A lot has changed since it last got any serious attention. Especially the evolution in the SEC attitude. I found a speech by Commissioner Cox in which he recognizes the depressing effect of fails on stock prices. It was my inclination to dig in, but I want to check with others first so we can do this in an orderly way.--Beware of Cow 01:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Feel free as a fresh eye would be welcome. This article was the subject of editing warring months ago and the current version is a consensus. The SEC attitude has definitely evolved as per the Cox speech you added. However the SEC also makes comments elsewhere on its site downplaying the issue too which needs to be noted. It is important also to keep in the balancing opinions of critics who say the hooha is not warranted.--Mantanmoreland 13:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Well I look forward to working with you on this, though it may take a little while to complete as I seem to get here about once a week these days. Hopefully that will improve.
For now, I have two follow up questions.
First, is there anybody else who might want to get involved here, and how do we let them know? I've not really collaborated like this before so I don't know if there are group emails or other notifications available to send to interested users.
Second, will you help me understand what you meant when you noted "OR" on your note when you removed the SEC comment data? As I've seen it used, "OR" and "NOR" refer to not using original research. Did you mean something else by it? I ask because that wasn't what I'd call original research being that it came from the SEC website and all I really did was count. A link to the actual page on the SEC website was supposed to be included, but if it didn't appear right I wouldn't be surprised at all. My luck with links here is terrible. Hopefully that clarifies things. I'll go ahead and change it back now and if you still have concerns, mention it here and we can figure out what to do.--Beware of Cow 22:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Well you can't solicit people from outside, as that is called "meatpuppets" - see WP:SOCK. You can post notes in the talk pages of other users interested in the subject of economics and the stock market to ask them to chime in. I just did that with an editor who has worked on this page in the past. As for OR, I was referring to the WP:NOR. Your analysis of the comments, that it was unprecedented or whatever, I forget the wording, is considered OR. But I left in that there was scant opposition or words to that effect.
A lot of us are rapt up in academic cycles so this is a bad time for us all. This article meanwhile is a consensus version that was worked out weeks ago and was the subject of edit warring, so major changes need to be discussed first. --Mantanmoreland 02:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, just to clarify here's the "OR": the phrase "may have been the most lopsided in recent SEC history, registering a single serious objection to amending SHO." If a reliable, verifiable source said this we could quote it. See WP:RS and WP:V. Editors can't analyse stuff in the public record or do original research into the history of recent SEC rulemakings and make that assertion based on their own research.
I reverted your analysis of the comments as that is OR. I'd suggest trying to find reliable sources discussing the comments rather than giving your own analysis. Also I used a longer quote from the Cox speech and put it further down in the section. I reinstated the previous beginning of the section, which was and is correct that the SEC denies the allegations of the NSS campaign, stock counterfeiting and the like. Cox called abusive naked shorting a "serious problem" but he did not endorse the NSS theories which go far beyond that. You had edited it to make it seem as if he had done a 180 degree turn.--Mantanmoreland 02:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

72.192.56.93 03:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC) I don't know if this is how you do this, and I don't need to be part of your cluster 03:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC) I was asked to look at this by a web buddy, and I'm amazed that no one has seen the essential problem with the logic that selling shares that cost nothing to borrow from legitimate share owners should be allowed in our capital markets. Basically, unless there is a cost to selling additional shares, the seller can *always* force the price down, since no buyer or buyers has an infinite amount of money to buy those shares. This is exactly why it was made illegal in the Securities Act of 1934 after Jesse Livermore and his buds used it to such devastating effect in the 1920's. I hope some Wiki editor reads this and fixes the article, since the article now reads as if it is a combination of multiple plugs for some author's books and website and an argument to allow the securities laws to be broken because that might prevent some other laws from being broken. Also, I really don't understand why that reporter's opinions matter more than the statements from the Chairman of the SEC, and a number of members of Congress, etc. Why are those links removed, while the off-topic unsupported opinions of one reporter who got an award ten years ago taken as the sole quotable authority?

Unbalanced, and being maintained that way.

The fact the editor will not permit edits balancing the article or an external link to the SEC Comments page to remain here demonstrates bias. 70.134.119.250 15:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


I added a link to a Forbes Magazine article about the practice of naked short selling last night written by Harvey Pitt, former Chairman of the SEC. Why would that be removed, yet multiple links and references to books and blog sites by former Business Week reporter Gary Weiss be allowed to stay?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.151.127.214 (talk • contribs).

Yes indeed. Unbalanced and maintained that way by meatpuppets who have come to this article as a result of a call to arms from the "sanity check" anti-naked shorting website. Entire segments of the article have been yanked out, and that is tantamount to vandalism as well as blatant POV pushing. The assault on this articleis the result of attacks on Wikipedia in The Sanity Check. That is an anti-naked short selling website. Check recent posts under "Bob's Sanity Check Blog." All the editors attacking this article are IPs and new screen names created for the express purpose of POV pushing here. --Mantanmoreland 05:18, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually I think editing others comments is acceptable, based on examples of same I've observed on this very page here, here, here, as well as here.
So, were you mistaken then, or are you mistaken now?--HomeComputer 16:34, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Anybody else catch the irony of Mantanmoreland complaining about "new screen names created for the express purpose of POV pushing here" when that's exactly why Mantanmoreland was created? Look at his first edit[5], smack in the middle of the last NSS edit war, Mantanmoreland hits the ground running, jumping in and thrashing about like a pro!
You know, sometimes hypocrisy is ironic and funny, and sometimes it feels sort of pathological.--HomeComputer 16:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Pathological! Almost funny, that's how pathological.[6]--Mantanmoreland 13:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The only "POV" pushing allowed here is from Gary Weiss and his books advertised here, well done, mantanmoreland.


03:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)~/*Comments from a securities professional */ I don't know if this is how you do this, and I don't need to be part of your cluster process ... I really think these comments belong in the section about the effect of naked shorting (Fail to Deliver) on stock prices, but after I put that in, it looked like that might be ancient history in this thread, so I put this down on the end since it might not be noticed otherwise...

I'm amazed that no one has seen the essential problem with the logic that selling shares that cost nothing to borrow from legitimate share owners should be allowed in our capital markets. This guy Weiss is some kind of buffoon or has an illicit agenda if that's his position. Maybe he's just a securities market Taliban "true believer" that thinks all transgressions (as judged by him and a few unnamed others) should be punishable by corporate death meted out by capitalist vigilantes.

Basically, unless there is a cost to selling additional shares, the seller can *always* force the price down, since no buyer or buyers has an infinite amount of money to buy those shares. This is exactly why it was made illegal in the Securities Act of 1934 after Jesse Livermore and his buds used it to such devastating effect in the 1920's. I hope some Wiki editor reads this and fixes the article, since the article now reads as if it is a combination of multiple plugs for some author's books and website and an argument to allow the securities laws to be broken because that might prevent some other laws from being broken. Also, I really don't understand why that reporter's opinions matter more than the statements from the Chairman of the SEC, and a number of members of Congress, etc. Why are those links removed, while the off-topic unsupported opinions of one reporter who got an award ten years ago taken as the sole quotable authority?

.zip file

This link:

  • http://www.businessjive.com/nss/darkside.zip (Presentation explaining the mechanics of naked shorting) is a 16 mb .zip file which is both extraordinarily large and could expand into almost anything. I wonder if both the negative and positive viewpoints regarding naked short selling are adequately presented? Fred Bauder 16:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Links that should be included

This commentary piece written July 11 by Harvey Pitt, former Chairman of the SEC (2001-2003) should definitely be included in this article. He argues that the failure of the SEC and Wall Street to properly police naked shorting may result in much harsher regulation or laws.

http://www.forbes.com/columnists/2006/07/11/leadership-harve-pitt-cs_hp_0711coveringupnakedshorts.html

Also, a few days ago there were links to comments on changing Regulation SHO filed with the SEC from a number of members of Congress, the US Chamber of Congress, the Governor of Utah, and other current or former regulators, legislators, and administration officials which are now removed from the article.

The Pitt article seems appropriate, see if you can find the other links. Fred Bauder 18:56, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[last change - removing editorializing about Gary Weiss and wiki editor mantanmoreland, and just including links from recent versions of the main article that were reverted into oblivion, taking on-point discussion out of the article]

first, a link to a Time magazine article that has been deleted:

Time Magazine Article on Naked Short Selling [22]

I think at one point the article also included links to a business school professor's study commissioned by the SEC (I think it was called something like "Stategic Fails to Deliver" by a Professor Leslie Boni) and at various times over the past week it also had links to comments from the Utah Governor and the heads of their state govermment. Those are important, I think, because Utah recently passed a state law that strenthens Regulation SHO by providing for cash penalties and disclosure of who is not delivering when a Utah company is on the SHO list of fails for more than several weeks after the trades were supposed to be settled. Not surprisingly, both the Securities Industry Association and the SEC came out opposed to the Utah statute.


Here is a paragraph from an Oct 4 version of the article that had many of the governmental authority, etc. comments:

A host of recognized authorities, including regulators, economists, academics, and elected officials, support amending Reg SHO and have expressed considerable concern over naked short selling in comment letters to the SEC: from the Utah Securities Regulator [7], from the CT AG :[8], from the former Undersecretary of Commerce [9], from the US Chamber of Commerce + The SEC bowed to mounting pressure to amend the two year old Regulation SHO, to close loopholes some critics said promoted naked short selling. [10] - - [11], from the UTAH Chamber of Commerce[12], and from numerous members of Congress [13] [14] [15][16][17]

The Time article seems good, although it confuses me. Fred Bauder 20:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


Fred --

It seems hard for the reporters to grasp, which is used to the benefit of the perpetrators of what is really plain old fashioned fraud of the paid-but-not-delivered kind... usually the first thing they do is pretend the anti FTD stand is against legal short-selling, rather than the illegal kind.... Strangely enough, most likely the majority of naked short sales are entered into the system as regular sales of stock, the kind you or I can enter if we currently own the stock... Next comes twenty versions of "the dog ate my homework", or it's legit for market-makers.... since when is billions of dollars and millions of shares missing for weeks and months some kind of temporary and normal non-malicious goof up? However, if they can make the public think it is, they can keep on with the dirty illegal kind. Looks like the SEC is providing cover for the activity as they try not to show how they've failed to enforce their own regulations....

Ok, then it is a disambiguation problem. There are legal naked short sales, illegal naked short sales, and there is fraud directed at driving a stock down. Fred Bauder 21:26, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


you've got it... If you look at the past history of this article, you'll see what looks like a deliberate attempt to make it ambiguous, starting with the restatement of the premise that illegal naked shorting should be stopped as being a wacko campaign against all short-selling, including the most common legal type where actual shares are borrowed and delivered. Then comes the bizarre argument from Weiss et. al. that it should not be against the law because it serves as a counterweight to pump-and-dump schemes (without any support for this argument, by the way).... Sort of like lynching is good for the community because it cuts down on horse theft..... Finally, we've got the SEC busy data-mining to defend its record, and shareholders using Freedom of Information Act to get the real (two months delayed) data out of the SEC... and lo and behold, the SEC actually had to work really hard to find a 9-month period in the two years the rule has been around when the failure to deliver problem wasn't staying the same or growing... Then the wiki article proceeds to give all the air time to the SEC and the DTCC and to Weiss, along with a couple of minor editorial articles that simply support the others...

This issue is getting larger, and deserves even-handed treatment in this people's encyclopedia. You might start by taking away the edit priviledges of mantanmoreland, since his bias is extreme.


Just to make it clear who the DTCC is -- it is a private corporation owned primarily by the broker-dealers that clears trades electronically.... it charges a fee and makes a profit, among other ways, by lending out shares from its store of stock, without the knowledge of the shares' owners, and without paying them a fee... this lending, supposedly temporary, is used to cover failures to deliver so that stock sellers who don't deliver the stock they sold can get the proceeds of the sale, their brokers can collect commissions, and all the while the original owner and the new "owner" both think they own the same shares... Note how DTCC's FAQ, etc. gets prominent placement in the article with no admission whatsoever that DTCC itself makes some pretty good fees off covering for the fails... DTCC also leads the effort nationwide to make it illegal to issue paper stock certificates. They call it dematerialization... which is exactly what might be happening to our retirement funds if this game is allowed to continue to its logical conclusion....


Another link, from the Denver Post this weekend, as part of its Finance 101 series. They give a definition of Naked Short Selling. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_4454508

It's short and sweet (no pun intended), so here is the definition in its entirety:

" Print Friendly View Email Article business Finance 101 Article Last Updated:10/07/2006 09:52:14 AM MDT


SHORT COURSE | Naked short-selling

The suggestive name doesn't go far enough, as naked short-selling is actually an illegal practice.

A short sale - which is a bet that a security is about to decline in price - requires an investor to borrow shares of a security and sell them; if the price of the stock goes down, the investor buys back the shares, returns them to the institution they were borrowed from and pockets the difference.

In a naked short sale, traders - usually professional investors and hedge funds - fail to ensure that they can, in fact, borrow the securities somewhere. By registering the trade without actually borrowing the shares, the short-seller can put unlimited pressure on the stock, constantly turning up the heat - by "selling" shares that they can't actually find or use - until the stock responds by declining.

Rather one sided. Fred Bauder 00:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


Legal naked short sales are like the legal homicides. They exist, but they are the exception to the law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/opinion/06sauer.html? Fred Bauder 02:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


That author just took a job with a short-selling hedge fund (Copper River, the former Rocker Partners). Note that Sauer's relationship with Marc Cohodes goes back to at least 1999, when Cohodes (managing partner of both short-selling hedge funds) "interviewed" him. Incidentally, that hedge fund has historically held large put option positions in a number of the larger cap stocks that have appeared for long periods of time on the Regulation SHO list of stocks that have large open Fails to Deliver (naked shorted stocks), including as much as $10 to $20 million (cost basis) positions in out-of-the-money puts that were opened with extremely good timing just days before those options went up in value because the SEC opened an informal inquiry, which SEC action was then written about in a publication more than 10% owned by Rocker Partners. In most cases, these inquiries or investigations never found anything wrong with the companies, but the damage was done to the stock prices. This is the basis of a number of shareholder lawsuits against Mr. Cohodes, his firm, and his partners.

Probably not a good source, given the financial advantage he personally gets from making as little of the problem as possible.

Comment on recent history deletions

I cannot speak for SlimVirgin's reasoning, but I believe the deleted edits should be retained outside of the page history. A logical extension of our policy regarding the biographies of living persons and our policy prohibiting personal attacks is clearly that we cannot permit potentially libelious attacks on persons on- or off-Wiki at any time. Reposting the content again may result in a block for personal attacks and violations of our protections on living persons. (ESkog)(Talk) 03:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Problem with the 'Drivng Prices down' and 'Controversy' sections

The section that purports to answer the question whether naked shorting drives prices down is an extensive quote from one source only, the SEC. There are a number of sources in academic works and the business press that say 'yes', but the work from the SEC is a laundry list of reasons why naked short selling might not be the only reason for prices to drop. It makes it seem that naked shorting may not drive prices down, a premise that is absurd on the face of it. If a seller has no cost to sell, they can always drive the price of anything down. Supply in that cases always overwhelms demand. Regular, legal, shorting involves borrowing stock to sell, and paying the owner of that stock for the priviledge. That limits the amount that can be sold short, along with the logistics of finding unrestricted stock whose owner is willing to lend it. That allows markets to achieve a balance between selling and buying. The analogy on the long purchase side would be if some market participant were allowed to buy stock, but not pay for it until the price was higher than the original "purchase".

The Controversy section is the thing which really gives the article its essential imbalance. That section gives approximately half the space to single voice. That reporter's article from 2003, and his two book are referenced. Basically, he argues that the law requiring settlement of trades is a bad law, and should not be enforced. I recommend reading the article for yourself http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_49/b3861105_mz020.htm. He is, as far as I can tell, the only person who has publicly taken that position. So is this a controversy, or is it a Quixotic campaign by one person? I think everyone else agrees that it should be illegal except for special limited circumstances for licensed and registered market makers, and those exceptions are designed to be temporary and to keep the markets liquid. I invite anyone to find any reputable source other than that one reporter that advocates ending the illegal status of naked shorting.

There are some elements of controversy, such as how prevalent the practice is, or how much damage it does. Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by investors shows that the problem has grown as large as 10% of some stocks, amounting to more than $100 million even at the stock prices that were, perforce, depressed by an additional 10% of supply. That's in just one stock. Across the whole market, even the sources that say it isn't a problem admit that it amounts to billions of dollars paid for but not delivered every day.

You also have the most recent and the current Chairmen of the SEC acknowledging that it is a problem, lawmakers passing new laws to encourage diligent enforcement, and members of Congress takng a stand in favor of strenthening the regulations, state Attorneys General testifying that it is a problem before the Senate, the US Chamber of Commerce sending strong commentary to the SEC that it is a problem, and yet the thrust of this article seems to say that wanting the current laws enforced is some kind of nutty 'jihad' undertaken by fanatics or even outright fraudsters. Why are the links to these sources being deleted as soon as they are added?

Am I wrong, or is there an overwhelming POV being pushed here by those that enjoy the benefits of breaking the law, and want the authorities to continue to let them slide?

Finally, I'd like to add the observation that the most common defense of those who refuse to address the issue is to pretend that the anti-naked shorting crowd is against legal shorting, which they are most assuredly not.

North American Secuties Administrators Association

This is the voice of all fifty state securities regulators. Their comments on the naked short selling and failures to deliver leave little doubt as to whether it is a problem. They have enforcement powers. It would be a shame if this article is not included in the discussion of the topic. Note that this source refers to a number of other primary sources with acknowleged expertise. These are far better than the opinions expressed by only one person who has no direct experience or authority in the matters discussed in the article.

Viz. copyright, these are part of the public record as formal comments filed with the SEC, so deleting them is against wikipedia policies as I understand them.

http://sec.gov/comments/s7-12-06/jpborg7410.pdf

Just one section from the letter to the SEC by NASAA should give you the desire to read the entire letter:

HIDING BEHIND THE SKIRTS OF LEGITIMATE MARKET PARTICIPANTS

While NASAA readily acknowledges the legitimate role of short selling, investors demand accountability for those who engage in dishonest conduct while masquerading as legitimate short sellers. Just as regulators must prevent manipulation of share prices upward, they must detect and prevent manipulative schemes and devices that push share prices downward. These devices include naked short selling, collusion between traders and analysts as to the content and timing for release of research reports, the existence of substantial open fail positions, and the depressive effect on prices of multiplicity (having multiples of shares available for sale).1 Regulators must recognize that processes designed to facilitate and accelerate the settlement of trades are facilitating manipulative schemes and devices.

[further down in the letter is a list of abuses facilitated by the current system]

The potential problems caused by abusive trading – masquerading as legitimate trading – are legion:

• Higher settlement failures. The number, volume, and length of settlement failures are increased because of the trading activities of short sellers;
• Lack of disclosure. Customers may complain that they are not aware of the extent to which their shares are being lent out and the effects on them of the lending. Some also may complain that they are not receiving any portion of the compensation the brokerage firm is earning by lending out the customers’ stockholdings.
• Shareholder voting rights are impaired. This can include overvoting as well as possible customer complaints that they are not being informed of the risks their votes will not be counted. It could be argued that broker-dealers affirmatively are misleading customers if the firms provide proxy voting information to customers when the customers’ shares have been lent to another.
• Inaccurate recordkeeping. Individual customers rarely are informed when their shares have been lent by the broker-dealer. The secrecy of this practice is facilitated by the records of the broker-dealer which continue to show the customer as the owner of shares. When the customer receives her account statements, any shares that have been lent to another by the broker-dealer still are listed on the customer account statement as being in the customer account. This record is not accurate. If the shares have been lent, the customer is not the holder or owner of the shares.4
• Multiplicity. As described earlier, the number of shares advertised as available in the market may exceed the number of shares actually available to deliver. This magnifies the depressive effect of the asking prices for these shares. As described below, the extent by which the shares being offered exceed the number of shares outstanding can be enormous. See note 13.
• Improper incentives. Short selling creates incentives for other violative or manipulative conduct. Regulation SHO, while it attempts to prevent short selling abuses, permits some conduct that can further abusive conduct. These incentives include:
o Insider trading. Because short selling is profitable only if a company’s stock price falls, traders have a significant incentive to learn – or create – negative information about a company, then advertise that information. Testimony at the June 28, 2006 hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, ”Hedge Funds and Independent Analysts: How Independent are Their Relationships?” included testimony that some traders collude to have research firms release reports disparaging a company’s performance, then time the release of those reports to occur after the trader has amassed a large short position. The Commission has brought several enforcement actions involving insider trading. In March, three hedge funds and a manager were accused of insider trading and naked short selling in connection with 23 Private Investments in Public Equity (PIPE) offerings. SEC v. Langley Partners, Lit. Rel. 19607, Mar. 14, 2006. In May, the SEC sued hedge fund adviser Deephaven Capital management for insider trading on advance knowledge that 19 PIPE offerings were about to be announced publicly. SEC v. Deephaven Capital Management, LLC and Bruce Lieberman, Lit. Rel. No. 19683, May 2, 2006.
o Bear raids. There are many examples of companies who have sought financing only to have the financers try to drive the stock price down. Such financings involve the company guaranteeing the value of convertible debt by promising to deliver additional stock if the company’s stock price drops below certain levels, then having the lenders seek that very result. These types of financings may be PIPEs or convertible debt (also called – generally after the fact – death spiral financing or toxic convertibles). Reportedly, some lenders short the stock of the company to which they provide financing in an effort to cause declines in the stock’s price and to then profit from those declines. The lender ends up with cash profits and more stock. Emshwiller, Lawyer Tied to Past Small-Stock Scam Takes Up Contentious ‘PIPE’ Deals, Wall. St. J., Aug. 25, 2006 at C-1.
o Naked short selling. Short selling can be risky. The profit margin to be earned can be substantially reduced or even completely offset by the costs of borrowing stocks. The costs can be significant, reportedly as much as 23% of the value of a security for certain “hard-to-borrow” stocks. Short sellers who avoid borrowing stocks before selling them (and avoid delivering them at settlement) can save these costs, increasing their profit margins.5 Two lawsuits have been filed in New York accusing prime brokers of, inter alia, charging stock lending fees for stock that never was lent. Moyer, Hedge Fund Hell, Forbes.com, July 28, 2006.
o Inadequate locates. Regulation SHO only requires a short seller to “locate” shares that can be borrowed. The seller is not required to “reserve” (decrement) the shares located and nothing precludes a lender from giving a “locate” on the same shares to multiple sellers. This can lead to an increase in settlement fails if multiple sellers relied on the same locate and some are then unable to actually borrow those shares. In such a situation, Regulation SHO is not violated and the lender and “locator” have not acted improperly. This contributor to fails should not be permitted. Inadequate locates also can come from customers. Because Regulation SHO permits customers to obtain the “locates” on shares to be sold short,6 customers are tempted to act on their economic incentive to avoid the costs of actually borrowing shares.
o Manipulation. The insider trading, naked short selling, delivery failures and bear-raid activities described above all are forms of market manipulation. The frequency and magnitude of these abuses are exacerbated by short selling.
o Uptick abuses. We fear that traders may avoid the uptick rule by having another broker enter an accommodating trade for 100 shares at an uptick price, thus permitting the trader to enter an order for a short sale of 100,000 shares.
o Mismarking trades. Too many firms fail to report information about short transactions. Due to the significant economic benefits that can be derived from abusive short selling, we are suspicious that the failure of some firm to mark short sale transactions accurately is intentional, not accidental. Whether intentional or accidental, these reporting errors are significant and can affect the accuracy of public information dramatically. More needs to be done to ensure that brokerage firms accurately report the short selling activities of their clients. This will promote investor confidence in the integrity of the markets and enhance the accuracy and transparency of market information.
o Avoiding threshold designation. We are concerned that some traders seek to hide their short selling activities, making great efforts to ensure their transactions do not trigger threshold designations. This might be done by having their fails not extend past five days after settlement or focusing trades involving fewer than 10,000 shares or volumes less than .5% of the issuer’s number of outstanding shares. Traders also recognize that they can execute short sale transactions (and any resulting settlement failures) that cause a company to be listed as a designated security, without being subject to the consequences of the settlement failure: the trader would not be required to be closed out under Regulation SHO.
o Market makers. Market makers have incentives to facilitate non-market making trades under the guise of market making. This may include proprietary trading by the market maker, speculative trading strategies customers, and otherwise assisting customers in avoiding the requirements of Regulation SHO.

72.192.56.93 05:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)securities professional

Another Forbes Article on Naked Shorting

Dated October 13, 2006. Focuses on the North American Securities Administrators' Association comments and recent laws passed by states to increase disclosure and enforcement against illegal naked shorting. Sure seems to make more sense than a pure opinion piece with no legitimate references from 2003.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2006/10/13/state-regulators-naked-shorts-biz-cx_lm_1016shorts.html

Nice quote from the Director of Utah's Division of Securities on the uncooperative behavior of the DTCC, which the current wiki article deems to be an "NPOV" source.

Wayne Klein, director of Utah's Division of Securities, wrote in a letter to the SEC, "The division does not know whether the obstreperous attitude of DTCC is because DTCC has shortcomings that it fears releasing or whether DTCC's lack of cooperation is at the behest of its participant firms." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.192.56.93 (talk • contribs).

Current SEC commisioner's remarks pointing out problem of naked short selling

Commissioner Paul Atkins remarks include the following section, in which he lays out the method by which short sellers collude with plaintiff's counsel and use the press and even the SEC itself to further their illegal manipulation:

"As the story goes -- and I have personally seen instances of this before I came to the Commission -- the two groups can act in concert to systematically drive down the price of a company's stock, to their mutual gain and the company's and its shareholders' loss. A recent Wall Street Journal opinion provided detail into a couple of these alleged schemes, stating that hedge funds take short positions in a company, then embark on a campaign to drive down the price of the company's stock.6 Allegedly, the hedge funds enlist the help of plaintiff's lawyers, and together they use the media, and even referrals to the SEC enforcement staff, to create and disseminate negative news for the company. When the stock price falls, the hedge funds cover their short positions, and the plaintiff's lawyers swoop in with a class action suit. In one example, the hedge fund was actually the lead plaintiff in the class action until the judge disqualified the fund due to its short selling activity! Talk about double dipping! If true, these stories are examples of both unethical legal conduct and hedge fund tactics at their worst.

Of course, this is not the first time we have heard allegations of attacks on American companies and their shareholders by unscrupulous players. The SEC has a long history of bringing enforcement actions against the perpetrators of similar fraudulent enterprises, such as "pump and dump," "cybersmear," and "boiler room" market manipulation schemes.

These issues are tremendously important to the integrity of the capital markets, and we should be careful to ensure that the appropriate amount of enforcement resources are directed to the type of activity described in the Journal piece, as well as the separate but no less important issue of illegal naked short selling. Have we, perhaps inadvertently, over the past few years allowed too much of our attention to be diverted to other, supposedly "sexier" financial frauds where the lines are greyer, potential settlements are eye-popping, and newspaper headlines are guaranteed? "

http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/spch021606psa.htm

How much longer is the wiki article going to ignore referenced quotes from SEC commissioners and Chairmen, state securities regulators, numerous members of the US Congress, atate attorneys general, etc., allowing the solitary, unsupported voice of one reporter with two articles and two books referenced, yet not one fact or reference by that reporter outside of his opinion that the illegal practice should be legal?

The bias in this article is extreme. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.192.56.93 (talk • contribs).

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