18.7.08

Pakistanis should ban short selling




The Pakistani government should take a cue from the U.S. and ban short-selling on things they don't to go down and limit long positions on things they don't want to go up. It seems to be working wonders here in the U.S. for financials and oil - they could have avoided this:


This report from the BBC has all the details:
Hundreds of angry investors, upset by plunging Pakistani share prices, smashed windows of Karachi Stock Exchange and scuffles broke out during a protest to demand a temporary closure of the market....The KSE-index is down 14% since Monday after the relaxation of curbs on daily movements that had been tightened in late June to halt a precipitate fall in values.From Monday, daily circuit breakers reverted to 5% up or down, having been amended to 1% down or 10% up in late June, a move that stifled trading volume.Apparently the curbs intended to "guide" the market higher didn't work as intended.This may have been a joke (it's not easy to get information on the Karachi stock market), but, according to this item at the Deal Journal WSJ blog, Pakistan had the best stock market performance as of April 1st.

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