Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The Effectiveness of Short Selling Bans (sarcasm)


With Italy now requiring disclosure of short positions and debating an actual short selling ban I thought the following news headlines and accompanying charts would be reassuring to observe.



SEC bans short-selling
Agency puts temporary halt to trading practice that 'threatens investors and capital markets' for 799 financial companies.
By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: September 19, 2008: 7:41 AM EDT

"This will absolutely make a difference," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economists at Avalon Partners. "Short sellers are going to have to cover their positions very heavily."
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/19/news/economy/sec_short_selling/


Schaueble plans to ban short-selling –sources
BERLIN | Tue May 18, 2010 12:16pm EDT
BERLIN May 18 (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble plans to ban short-selling from midnight, coalition sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/05/18/germany-schaeuble-shortselling-idUSBAT00546220100518

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

2007 Top and Current Price Action

The following charts represent a study I have been analyzing the last few days which concerns the topping pattern seen in mid-2007 before the financial crisis, and the chart pattern that has been observed in the last few months in the S&P 500. Granted the charts do not line up perfectly, it is obvious that the chart of the last few months is happening at a faster, more compressed rate than that of the price action in 2007. Nonetheless similarities are abound even MACD, stochastic, and rsi indicators are all lining up with eerie resonance. In addition to the technical side of the pattern, I think too we can examine what’s going on globally and concur that the problems facing the European Union right now are similar in potential systemic affect as those that caused the financial crisis. Quite simply when Lehman collapsed it created a domino effect in the credit and derivative markets. With an Italian default in question a similar domino effect could be observed, not to mention that many more of the European Union members are in poor position to even service the debt they have now, much less be able to deal with an imploding credit market. Many individuals are speculating that a default by one of these nations would be more systemic and more destructive then the financial crisis of 2008. I’m not too sure to what degree I agree with that statement however, a situation as illustrated would create significant downside in the markets.