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[thelimeyone]

"..companies will continue to be victimized by Naked Short Selling"

Overstock.com Drops Off of the Regulation SHO Threshold List
Renews Call for SEC to Make Real ReformsSALT LAKE CITY, July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overstock.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: OSTK) announced that on July 3, after 838 total trading days (and 130 consecutive trading days), it dropped off of Nasdaq's Regulation SHO threshold list. (Source: http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=RegSHOThreshold).
Regulation SHO requires the stock exchanges to publish daily a list of companies whose stock has failures-to-deliver within the DTCC above a certain threshold. It also requires mandatory close-outs for open fail-to-deliver positions in threshold securities persisting for over 13 days, with the aim that no security would appear on the threshold for any extended period. Despite that aim, Overstock.com has appeared on the Regulation SHO threshold list for 838 of the 881 trading days that Regulation SHO has been in effect -- over 95% of the days -- including one stretch that spanned 668 consecutive trading days.
"While this development is encouraging," said Overstock.com chairman and ceo Patrick Byrne, "I am suspicious that the blackguards are just shifting unsettled trades outside of the DTCC using ex-clearing transactions. I have learned enough about our nation's stock settlement system to understand it is a black hole within which events follow laws understood by no outsiders, and into which journalists daren't peek."
While Overstock.com has dropped off of the Regulation SHO threshold list, as of July 3, 2008, 437 companies remain on the list: 227 for over 13 consecutive trading days, 49 for over 100 consecutive trading days, and one, Medis Technologies Ltd., for 732 consecutive trading days. (Source: http://buyins.net/tools/short_list.php?ssd=20080703).
"Overstock.com, members of Congress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, investors, academics, and other companies have repeatedly called for the SEC to eliminate the options market maker exception of Regulation SHO and to require short-sellers to actually locate and borrow shares before selling them," said Overstock.com senior vice president, corporate affairs and legal Jonathan Johnson. "Until the SEC makes these real reforms to Regulation SHO, companies will continue to be victimized by naked short selling."

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