Pot calling kettle Mack

Prominent North Carolinian John J Mack of Morgan Stanley was out there last week saying that "short sellers may be spreading false information and using abusive tactics to attack companies."

Pretty rich (which he is, of course) considering Morgan Stanley's pre-eminent position in global prime brokerage, basically the lifeblood of hedge funds.

==============

Meanwhile, short bans seem to have gone airborne, (maybe Dustin Hoffman can play Hank Paulson in the inevitable movie?) as Barry Ritholtz notes in his must-read The Big Picture.

My comments: So, short selling no longer allowed. No problem - if I'm short a position in one of the 799 (just hypothetically, of course), I just won't cover into this bear rally - I'll simply go long the same amount in the same name and then when I DO want to go short, I'll sell the long position in Morgan Stanley (oops) again. (And until the short bans kick in globally, I could box in trades long/short in markets while they're still allowed.)

======================

Update: From Roger Nusbaum, of Random Roger fame, responding on Barry's site,

"HT, you might want to double check that before you do it. Used to be that if someone was short v the box they need to borrow all over again in order to lift the long leg.

The idea being that short v the box is not short. To establish a new short you must borrow shares.

I may have it wrong but you should ask whoever you trade with."

GOOD POINT! And a good point that I should check with my PB... though I was thinking in terms of my shorts via swaps and longs via cash (in some markets in Asia) or possibly using different accounts - but yes - good advice: CHECK FIRST! Thank you, Roger!


::