NEWS

The August 24, 2009 BBC interview with James Chanos, CPIC’s chairman, triggered a wave of stories raising questions about the G7 ministers ignoring warnings that he and another investor, Paul Singer, provided in a Washington, D.C. meeting in April 2007.
Peter Waugh, deputy political editor for the London Evening Standard, writes:
“[I]t now turns [...]

As the first anniversary of the 2008 global financial meltdown approaches, the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston talks to four key individuals who were in the eye of the storm. Why did they fail to see the warning signs of economic catastrophe and what are the long term consequences?
Hedge fund managers and ’short-sellers’: evil market [...]

In the Financial Times’s Lex column August 18, 2009, the author outlines the negative impact of a proposed rule by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to impose an uptick rule to determine if an investor could go short.
“In a fevered atmosphere abusive trading becomes more likely so it makes [...]

New York Times columnist Floyd Norris reports on August 18, 2009 that, “The Securities and Exchange Commission, after months of considering what to do about short-selling, came up with a new idea on Monday that could make it virtually impossible to place an order to sell stock short and be sure it would be [...]

Researchers Xiaoxia Lou (University of Delaware) and Jonathan M. Karpoff (University of Washington) examined whether short sellers identify firms that misrepresent their financial statements. Their August 3, 2009 research paper “indicates that short sellers anticipate the eventual discovery and severity of financial misconduct. Short selling also conveys external benefits to uninformed investors, by helping to [...]

Researchers Seraina N. Gruenewald (University of Zurich), Alexander F. Wagner (University of Zurich), and Rolf Weber (Rechtswissenschaftliches Institut) provide a global overview of the emergency short selling restrictions imposed in 2008 in response to the financial crisis. In their August 4, 2009 paper, they write: “Although not all countries have implemented short selling restrictions, [...]

Bloomberg reporter Jesse Westbrook reported August 6, 2009 that the Securities and Exchange Commission “may seek additional feedback on whether to limit short selling.” He reported that “the SEC is considering re-opening the comment period on proposals that include reviving the so-called uptick rule.”
“ ‘The SEC might re-open the comment period if it felt [...]

Financial Times correspondent John Keefe (“A New Reality for Oft-Blamed Short Sellers,” August 2, 2009 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5ddd5a84-7f4f-11de-85dc-00144feabdc0.html ) looks at the regulatory climate for short selling. He notes that the October 1987 stock market crash and the bursting of the technology bubble occurred while the uptick rule was [...]