July 18, 2008
I have people asking me fairly often about how to invest and I've been telling them to avoid stocks all together and sell any they have for the simple reason that traders and brokers are playing too fast and loose with the rules, especially with short selling naked.
Companies amendments can literally be decided by people who really own ghost shares of stocks which were never really "owned" because they were sold by someone who was selling naked short.
Naked shorting just makes it that much worse for the average investor and I can say that most of the people I've suggested this to have in fact started pulling out their money out of the markets. Why invest in stocks when the odds are dangerously stacked against you?
I would just as soon go to Reno or Las Vegas. More and more people with money to invest will keep pulling money out of the markets if something more stringent isn't done about naked shorting (like requiring the stocks shorted to actually be held by the brokers).
If not, money will move faster and faster out of the stock markets and the markets will spiral down further and further.