SpanishFly - 18 sep 08, 22:35
Morgan Stanley's chief executive officer, John Mack, said short sellers may be spreading false information and using abusive tactics to attack companies.
``Government regulators are stepping in and saying, `This needs to come to a stop and this is how we're going to fix it,''' said Kelli Hill, a money manager at Ashfield Capital Partners in San Francisco, which oversees $4 billion. ``This is the thing the market needed.''
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it may require hedge funds to disclose short-sale positions, while the Financial Services Authority in the U.K. banned short selling of financial shares for the rest of the year.
In the U.K., the ban on short selling was introduced after politicians and some investors blamed short-sellers for HBOS Plc's plunge before it agreed to a 10.4 billion-pound ($18.9 billion) takeover by Lloyds TSB Group Plc.
The FSA will also require daily disclosure of existing short positions in financial companies of more than 0.25 percent, the London-based regulator said in a statement today. The rules will remain in effect until Jan. 16.