“Knowing what we know now, I believe on balance, thecommission would not do it [short-sale ban on financials]again. The costs appear to outweigh the benefits.”—Christopher Cox, Former Chair of the U.S. Securitiesand Exchange Commission.1In times of crisis, regulators of financial mar-kets are increasingly turning to bans of short-saletransactions as a market-stabilizing tool. Forexample, on the heels of the market turmoilassociated with the bankruptcy announcement ofLehman Brothers on September 19, 2008, marketregulators around the world banned the short sale of financial sector stocks. Similarly, in the sum-mer of 2011, European market regulators bannedshort selling of sovereign bonds and stocks seek-ing to stabilize markets in a tailspin over sovereigndebt default concerns.1 This paper surveys theresearch on the impacts of short-sale bans onfinancial markets.Proponents of such actions argue that short sellingencourages speculation and price manipulation,unjustly reducing asset values with the potentialto contribute to self-perpetuating price spirals intimes of panic.2 Commenting on a ban of nakedshort positions imposed in July 2008, acting SECSecretary, Florence Harmon, stated: “We intend these and similar actions to provide powerful disincentives to those who might otherwise engagein illegal market manipulation through the dissemination of false rumors and thereby over time to diminish the effect of these activities on ourmarkets.” In contrast, advocates of short salesargue that they provide an important mechanismto impound bearish investor opinions in prices andcontribute to liquidity in the market.Short-sale bans are a blunt regulatory tool withbroad potential effects in financial markets. How-ever, the magnitude of the effects is tempered bythe extent to which investors can circumnavigatethe ban. For example, the ban on short-sellingfinancial sector stocks in 2008 did not extendto derivative market makers, creating opportuni-ties for the migration of short-sale order flow tooptions and credit default swap (CDS) markets.Both regulators and investors need to recognizethe potential impacts of such regulation. Theimpacts of the 2008 short-sale ban and poten-tial channels of mitigation have been extensivelyexamined and the synthesis of these studies pro-vides valuable insights into the likely effects offuture restrictions on short selling.The ban on short selling in 2008 produced bothintended and unintended results. The goal of thispaper is to provide regulators and market partic-ipants with a survey of the existing evidence ifand/or when short-sale bans are contemplated inthe future. We divide the effects of the short-saleban into two categories based on the statementsof intentions. The intended effects were to thwartthe dissemination of false rumors (short-sellingspeculation) and to improve or stabilize investorconfidence. The unintended effects included: (1)
reducing overall market liquidity, impeding price
discovery, and increasing volatility, (2) increasing
the price of options, (3) equity market price infla-
tion and wealth transfers, (4) reducing the level of
short covering, (5) causing a near-collapse of the
convertible bond market, (6) increasing transac-
tion costs of some exchange-traded funds (ETF),
(7) price inflation in the CDS market, and, finally,
(8) an opportunity cost of correct policy. Intended effects of the 2008
short-sale ban
During the recent financial crisis, the SEC halted
short selling in the stocks of financial firms in
U.S. markets between September 19, 2008 and
October 8, 2008. The stated purpose of the ban
was to limit the influence of short-selling specu-
lation on financial sector stocks and boost investor
confidence in a highly volatile, uncertain market.
1.1 Short-selling speculation
The short-selling ban was largely effective in
reducing short positions. Figure 1 shows the
value-weighted average percentage of float sold
short in 2008 for all stocks in the Center for
Research in Security Prices database, separately
displaying banned and not-banned stocks (pro-
vided by Harris et al., 2013; Boehmer et al.,
2013 report similar results). The percentage of
float sold short is similar for the banned and not-
banned samples at the start of the year (5%) and
peaks for both samples immediately prior to the
ban at a value of 7%. During and following the
ban, short interest dropped to approximately 4%
for both samples. From these trends, it is clear
that the short-sale ban reduced the proportion of
short selling in the market, but it is not clear that
short-selling pressure was abnormally high for
stocks included in the ban. Further, there was not a
clear abnormal effect of the ban on banned stocks
relative to the rest of the market. In summary,
the short-sale ban leads to a strong reduction in
short positions in target firms, but there was also
a collateral redu
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