Today's ban on short-selling by the FSA is described as part of a co-ordinated global strategy to help financial markets recover.
That's fine on the face of it, but when it comes down to the details today's actions look far from co-ordinated.
In London, the FSA has come out with a list of just 29 shares where short-selling has become illegal. The list covers banks and insurance companies. It does not include fund managers like F&C, hedge fund managers like Man and RAB capital and it omits stockbrokers. On the list is Resolution, the closed life funds company, taken over in May.
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued its list of banned shorting stocks early this morning. It includes banks, insurers and securities firms and runs to no fewer than 799 companies.
It also has a few anomalies; among the list are Lehman Brothers, which collapsed at the start of the week, Silver State Bancorp, which was shut down earlier this month, and Nigeria Aviation Holdings.
The SEC said its action “calls a time out to aggressive short-selling in financial institution stocks, because of the essential link between their stock price and confidence in the institution”.
The FSA says its rules will run for the next 120 days until 16 January. The SEC plans to enforce its ban on short-selling for only the next 10 days. Three of America's biggest institutional investors said they would stop lending shares to be used for short-selling.
Elsewhere, the Irish regulator has banned short-selling in only four stocks: Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Banks, Irish Life and Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank. Its ban runs until further notice.
In Russia, President Medvedev said that short-selling would be banned at the close of business today after the stock markets re-opened after a day and a half's suspension of trading.
Australian authorities banned “naked” short-selling, when investors sell shares short without borrowing the underlying stock. But French regulators said they had no plans to ban short-selling.
Article Courtesy :
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23557632-details/World+s+watchdogs+divided+on+how+to+tackle+the+crisis/article.do
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