Companies Not On SEC Short Sale Ban, But Should Be

Frankly, we think the ban on short sales is not the right way to run a free market.  But it doesn’t matter what we think.  These are the new rules, but they do not always make sense. Consider the stocks listed below that have many of the same issues as the financial companies but did not make the SEC’s list.

• American Capital, Ltd. (NASDAQ: ACAS)
• American Express (NYSE: AXP)
• Capital One (NYSE: COF)
• CIT Group (NYSE: CIT)
• First Marblehead Corp. (NYSE: FMD)
• General Electric (NYSE: GE)
• General Motors (NYSE: GM)
• HSBC Holdings PLC (NYSE: HBC)
• thinkorswim Group Inc. (NASDAQ: SWIM)
• VeriFone Holdings (NYSE: PAY)
• WisdomTree Investments (OTC-WSDT)

There are many others that could be included. We refrained from going into detail for the case on each of these, but if you see the companies are tied into the financial markets it should be fairly evident why they were named. There are also some on this list which didn’t look likefinancial firms whose stocks were down because of targeted shortselling.  That’s what makes a horse race.  The SEC has referred to such companies as an  "Included Financial Firm", and you can see the full list of them herefrom the SEC.

It is possible that some of these companies have already been added to the list.  We just haven’t seen them.

Jon C. Ogg
September 19, 2008