Wall St was down 94 overnight, its biggest fall in a month, while the local market is down 66.
What’s next ASIC? Ban trading altogether?
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No wonder the market couldn’t open on time this morning — those supposed to be running it don’t know what they’re doing. You have to admire ASIC’s consistency though — Firepower, rubbish mezzanine finance debentures, real estate spruikers, short selling, it’s haplessly behind the game by a year or two on just about everything. The ASX performance is more understandable: if you combine the jobs of poacher and gamekeeper, you’re going to have the odd conflict of interest. Sure, the intent of short selling regulations has been blatantly and consistently ignored for years and with steadily increasing urgency, but the ASX makes money out of trading, so let’s just turn a blind eye and count the profit. But how ridiculous that these hapless “authorities” go completely over the top when they do belatedly jump on the global anti-short-selling bandwagon. And just what prompted the big leap from Friday’s temporary ban on naked shorts to yesterday’s escalation to a total ban on all short selling, naked, covered, or suggestively draped in a little lace somewhere in between? Marvellous what a pile of pressure on Macquarie Bank seems to achieve after the watchpuppies had otherwise been lying doggo, so to speak. We now have the second most restricted market in the world — long only for at least the next 30 days. Only Russia has gone further: they banned trading altogether last week. Maybe that’s what ASIC is eventually aiming for. It’s one thing to try to spike the manipulators’ drinks, to enforce — rigorously — full disclosure, but another to close down totally legitimate market activity. And as of this morning, it remains to be seen just how several aspects of it might work. For a start, ASIC has just wiped out a whole pile of risk management facilities used by financial intermediaries, totally legitimate hedging operations. Commerce is being seriously stifled, and it goes without saying that most of the horses have long since decamped anyway. Where does this leave short CFDs (contracts for difference), for example? Could it bring into question the liquidity of CFD market makers, the glorified and geared bookies of equities trading? They’ve suddenly lost half their potential market and are facing big payouts to the longs on the present relief rally. And there are the completely reasonable long/short funds to consider. These particular creatures try to be market neutral by, for example, taking a view that Bank A is better run and has brighter prospects than Bank B and therefore will outperform Bank B whether the market is rising or falling. They go long Bank A and short Bank B, so that they don’t care what the market overall might do. They make, or lose, money on the quality the assessment of the two banks’ relative strengths. Nothing wrong with that, but they’ve just had their business banned. Short-term long-side traders might take their ASIC windfall this morning and run, but longer-term investors could be regretful. The Pascoe family super fund has been occasionally buying stocks as the market has been falling, the shorts providing opportunities for anyone with an eye to value and the longer term. And when this crisis finally passes, what damage might have been done to Australia’s oft-mouthed ambitions to be a regional financial centre. Anyone care to set up a long/short fund here again? Can you trust that this market will have sufficient liquidity? Oh well, Macquarie Bank will be relieved. Indeed, maybe this can be called the Relief of Macquarie. Which again makes me wonder: why wait until after the near-catastrophe last week, until after the long-awaited US fix goes in to quarantine poisonous mortgage related securities? A MacBank conspiracy or stuff-up? Well, ASIC’s involved — I’d vote for the latter. |
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11 Comments
ASIC: A*seholes, sh*ts, incompetents corporation…
Kate, you are right in that shorting is not looked on well at the moment as the professional short sellers NEED the price to drop hard. The best profits are to be made when you place a very low short on a solid stock.
The trick would be to get a bunch of like minded souls (do Dealers have souls?) to also place really low shorts and then when the market hears about it the shorts act to drive the price down to where you want it to be.
The best bet is to then hold the shares and sell them when the price rebounds. The problem is that not all of the people selling when the shares drop artificially are your mates ans so simply dump and run. They are known as ‘suckers’.
I’m a reasonably intelligent and well-educated professional, but I admit I don’t understand this at all.
Could someone please provide an idiot’s guide? - small words please, minimal jargon. Assume nil prior knowledge. I can balance my credit card but that’s about it.
Many thanks.
I’m no admirer of ASIC. Watchpuppy it is. But what a load of hysterical nonsense! They aren’t banning shorts forever, just a month. Ans whose going to lose money over it. Not the real economy. What never ceases to amaze me is that it is never the physical world that creates financial crisis. It’s not the people who make thinks or provide tangible services to others. It’s always the same old shower! The financial engineers, using their rebadged foot soldiers the finacial planner s(insurance salesmen) to extract the loot. The people who always work on a percentage and are always there when a transactions made. Of course the more transactions there are the richer they get. Have alook at where the average household budget gets spent. It’s not on power, it’s not on fuel, No it’s on the financial sector. See Beureau of Stats website for consumer price index if you don’t believe.
It’s a pity that it’s taken ASIC so long to realise the damage that shortselling has been causing to the market. My superfund lends out stock and gets up to 6% per annum in interest, but my super has fallen 20%, so I certainly don’t support short selling and it’s sister SBL.
Kate: “to go long” is to bet that a price will go up at some point in the future. That could be as an option to buy or by actually buying shares to sell in the future. To sell or go short is to bet that the price will go down either by selling shares that you do not own but are held in trust by a brokerage and buy them back later at a hopefully lower price or by buying an option to buy at a lower price in the future and exercising it later if the option price is lower than the market. The options can be traded a well.
The major problem is the abandonmet of the uptick rule. This has allowed cashed up short sellers to drive down prices where margin calls are inititiated and then buy these shares. With the uptick rule this was not possible and short sellers, whether borrowed or naked, could not artificially drive down the price of selected shares. there is no real reason to abandon short selling if the uptick rule applies.
Marion Diamond
A farrago of market-babble with no clear position other than Michael doesn’t like ASIC and Macquarie Group. (It’s a pretty safe bet that his family super fund contains no MQG shares.) Michael doesn’t seem to appreciate that what is going on globally is one of the worst financial crises in the past century and the end is nowhere in sight. Events of this magnitude don’t lend themselves to lengthy reviews and debate before corrective action is taken. OK, ASIC’s action on short-selling was belated, but only relatively so; is Michael suggesting that there should be no ban on short-selling? Who’s to say what constitutes “totally legitimate market activity”? While it will take time for clearcut evidence to emerge, it seems that short-sellers (naked and/or covered) were driving an attack on MQG that had the potential to be extremely harmful to all stakeholders. This attack, so it seems, was being fuelled by false and exaggerated rumours peddled in the media. Is this fair or just? Of course not.
I don’t have much sympathy with CFD traders — as Michael suggests, this is just leveraged stockmarket gambling and an example of the growth of derivatives that underlies some of the present chaos. Long/short positions may or may not be fine but it’s hard to see much point in the example quoted. Undoubtedly the embargo on short-selling will hurt some investors but “collateral damage” may be unavoidable when decisions have to be made quickly in the interests of “the greater good”.
I’m no admirer of ASIC. Watchpuppy it is. But what a load of hysterical nonsense! They aren’t banning shorts forever, just a month. Ans whose going to lose money over it. Not the real economy. What never ceases to amaze me is that it is never the physical world that creates financial crisis. It’s not the people who make thinks or provide tangible services to others. It’s always the same old shower! The financial engineers, using their rebadged foot soldiers the finacial planner s(insurance salesmen) to extract the loot. The people who always work on a percentage and are always there when a transactions made. Of course the more transactions there are the richer they get. Have alook at where the average household budget gets spent. It’s not on power, it’s not on fuel, No it’s on the financial sector. See Beureau of Stats website for consumer price index if you don’t believe.
If you wanted to demonstrate that there is a bubble in shares then nothing says it like outlawing a trade based on declining prices. Spot the naked emperor.
Ok, that makes sense. So, why is short selling banned? Is it that short selling provides an incentive to drive the market down, or is there more to it than that? And why can’t the market correct itself? [Yes, I understand these are naive questions - your patience is appreciated]