To: Bilow who wrote (5537 ) 9/29/2001 12:58:52 AM From: Qone0 Read Replies (2) | Respond to If you've lost money in the market it's because you bought too high, not because short sellers drove your stock prices down. Deciding on how the country's capital is invested is an important part of the stock market and the (long term) short sellers and hedge funds contribute to that information. Short sellers eventually have to buy back shares, and that prevents stocks from going as low as they otherwise would The market is entirely voluntary. If you don't want to have your shares lent out to short sellers, don't leave them in a margin account. Daytraders and market makers who sell short provide narrower spreads than would exist in their absence. Eliminating these (short term) shorts will mean that the market makers and daytraders will no longer be able to provide two sided quotes without carrying shares. Since carrying shares around takes a lot of money and risk, you will find that the spreads will become very wide and a lot of market makers will cease offering shares at all in a lot of stocks. Short selling can (theoretically) increase the total float of a company by an unlimited amount. Shares that are borrowed and sold short can be borrowed again and sold short again. The total number of shares sold short is a small percentage of the total market, and I doubt it has increased much since the market started sliding.
