“For nearly as long as stock markets have existed, authorities have tried to restrict short selling. And for as long as they have tried, they have failed. In 1733, in the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble, the British House of Commons banned what today would be called naked short selling. The law remained in force for more than 150 years, even though, as financial historian Charles Duguid noted in 1901, ‘it was at no time seriously operative.’
On Apr. 10, 1792, the New York state legislature banned short selling. Five weeks later, two dozen stockbrokers banded together to sign the Buttonwood Agreement, which created what became the New York Stock Exchange, where short selling occurred with abandon.”