Interesting Chart of the Day here from Bloomberg. The blue line is a basket of the 32 financial stocks that the FSA banned from short-selling in September. Together they declined 28 per cent since the restriction came into effect. The purple line is the FTSE All-share, which fell 8.4 per cent in the period. For added humiliation measure, the green line is RBS — the worst performer of the 32 companies.
The chart, according to Bloomberg, suggests the ban had little effect in preventing the stocks’ slump. Still, a previous Chart of the Day from the newswire showed shares of the 19 financial companies on the SEC’s “no naked-short selling” list (which ran from July 15 to Aug. 12 last year) gaining something like 26 per cent in the period. Go figure.
Related links:
HBOS: Where are the shorts? - FT Alphaville
Short selling ban on UK financials to end - FT Alphaville
