Here at Dealbreaker we love short sale bans. Nothing inspires confidence in an asset so much as a government telling you that you can’t sell it, especially when the government in question is taking time out from a busy schedule of bunga bunga parties to give a firm but loving hand to the equity markets.
So we were excited to see that, as the Italian equity and government bond markets melt down, politicians and regulators are sharpening their knives to come after the evil speculators who must be behind the drop. Italy is now requiring anyone who is net short more than 0.2% of the shares of an Italian listed company to disclose their position to regulators, with an updating requirement for changes of 0.1% or more, from now until September 9. More excitingly, there is already talk of banning naked shorts, regular shorts, sovereign CDS, etc. followed. Barry Ritholtz succinctly explains the reasoning:
In a classic act of misdirection, Italy is ordering short sellers to disclose their positions, because after all, the entire European credit crisis was caused by analysts who identified over valued stocks.
Exactly! You may be surprised to learn that this has not done much good so far – the disclosure requirement went into effect this morning in Italy and the FTSE MIB index was off 3.96% today, after shedding 3.47% on Friday and over 21% total from February highs. Perhaps Italy needs the moral courage of Benjamin N. Dover III to right this wrong.
Italy Orders Short Sellers To Disclose Positions [Bloomberg]
Ah, so that’s what happened to naked short
How do you get an Italian to stop talking?
Cut off his hands!!!
The “guess the post’s author by the title” game is back!
Pffffffft, worked out pretty well for us
- John Mack
IM A WARIO. IM A GONNA WIN.
Anyone wanna buy some Italian CDS?
- AIG
Chris Cox tag. Ha!
- guy who believes in encouraging people new to a role
Can’t Maria take one for the team and just eat all of their debt?
An Italian immigrant appears before an immigration judge in NYC.
“Judge-a, I havva to tella you thata I knowa alla the estates, their a-capitals, the Pledge-a of the Alligiencia, and all the things a I needa to know. But I gotta problema. I don’t-a speaka da Englisha too gooda so Ima afraid thata I notta geta my a-citizenship………..”
The Judge looks at him sternly and syas, “Hey! As longa Ima da judge you gonna be ok..”
It’s like Bess has a brother!
“Cassano”…..that’s an Italian name, right?
Hey Berlusconi, we’re putting a ban on your naked shorts, also you can’t close anymore outs. We think you not getting busy with 14 yr olds would be the best thing for our economy right now. Comprendere?
-Italian Uni Credit trader and furious gesturing with his hands
nope, try again tomorrow.
We fully support any ban on selling shorts too.
what sound does an italian helicopter make?
What is an out?
How do you know if an airplane is Italian?
There’s hair under the wings!
I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel:
You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis
somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common
patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin
iceholes… like yourselves.
Pikers. They should have hired us to do the “Now you see it, now you don’t” Exotic Debt Swap.
Vampire Squid
Goldman Sachs
That’s what we’d like to know.
wopwopwopwopwopwop
When your cleanup hitter is Carlos Lee, you get to know outs pretty well.
It is strange that some naked guys can borrow and sell shorts. .It is even stranger that anyone buys them.