"The market has its own mind."
Exactly! But the NSS crew fails to grasp this simple concept.
"Our belief is that naked short selling was never a problem with these stocks," said Eric Newman, portfolio manager at long/short fund TFS Capital in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Indeed, prior to the SEC's rule only one of the 19 stocks, the U.S.-listed shares of Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (DB.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), had been listed on the New York Stock Exchange's list that tracks stocks with "fails to delivers" -- an indication of naked short selling.
"We think the SEC are going to read into this data that a lot of short sellers exited positions," Newman added. "But we believe a careful look will show was that naked short selling was not ferreted out, but that it was regular legitimate short sellers who were closing their positions."