No, they should not. Brokers are not babysitters. Before an individual investor is allowed to short (or buy on margin) they must read and sign pages and pages of warnings. There is no way that any of these people can claim "but I didn't understand the risk".
The spot price is almost always close to the last price for securities with a healthy daily volume.
Unless something happens in the real world.
An investor who is afraid of a sharp spike in TSLA could by a call
Which, after transaction fees, would more than wipe out any expected profit from the short. That is like placing a bet that a horse will win, and another bet that it will lose. The only one making money is the bookie.
... or if it happened overnight he bought into overly volatile stock
"Volatile" is a description of a stock's HISTORY, not its future. You have no way of knowing the future.
Can you guess what was one of the least volatile stocks back in 2008? Volkswagen. Rock stable industrial firm, with hard assets and steady predictable profts. Then out of the blue it skyrocketed in price in a few SECONDS, bankrupting several financial institutions holding short positions.
"Monitoring a spreadsheet" would have done nothing for them.
... or theres some company-specific event causing serious pressure, its not going to move that fast.
There are "company specific events" EVERYDAY. If Tesla releases a statement that their sales bumped up, or their costs fell, or that they just brought a fully automated assembly line online, the HFTers will respond and push up the price in milliseconds. They don't even wait for a human to read the report. They have text analysis programs (written in compiled languages, not interpreted) scan the report for key words and phrases, and then automatically trigger trades.
Your claim that stock prices only move slowly and smoothly is absurd.
Just because the media said they didn't know of any doesn't mean there weren't hundreds.
Really? So you think there are hundreds of people willing to commit murder, but unwilling to carry a concealed gun without a permit?
Many states allow unrestricted conceal carry, with no license required. When they passed laws to allow this, some people predicted that shootings would soar since every road rage incident would turn into a homicide. Others predicted that crime would fall since more armed and law abiding people would be a deterrent. Here's what actually happened: It didn't make any difference.
he tweeted that he was looking forward the unemployment numbers coming out, which he did two hours before they were officially realised.
The unemployment report can move the stock market. So why is this monetizeable information given to politicians hours before it is released to the public?
The big concern should not be that Donald "leaked" the info, but that he had the info in the first place.
Again, anyone who shorts a stock can cut his losses any moment he wants by re-buying the stock
Do you understand how stock markets work? Do you think a high frequency trader is going to give you a courtesy call before placing a buy order that will push the price beyond your ability to pay?
In 2008 20% of VW shares were owned by the government of Lower Saxony. 74% were owned by the Porsche family and corporation. 13% of shares were shorted. When Porsche publicized their position, the shorties needed to buy more than 80% of the other shares to cover their position, which is completely implausible, especially since these other stockholders had NO reason to sell since the share price was obviously going to skyrocket (it subsequently quintupled).
No they shouldn't. Shorties provide a valuable check on inflated prices and help to root out corruption and fraud. Muddy Waters is a well known shorty. They investigate public companies, looking for inflated stock prices based on accounting fraud or other corrupt practices. If they uncover malfeasance, they take a short position, and then publicize their findings, driving down the price and reaping a profit. This prevents a much bigger crash that would occur if the fraud was able to continue.
Muddy Waters has been especially successful shorting Chinese companies listed in America on the NYSE and NASDAQ.
Go see the movie "The Big Short". Front Point Partners and others made a lot of money shorting the housing market, but the bubble, and ensuing crash, would have been much smaller if more people shorted it, and did so earlier.
I have met hundreds of developers. Many of them work in finance, payroll, and business process programming. None of them have used Cobol in more than 20 years. I am sure there are a few legacy Cobol programs still out there, but it is not common at all, and it is a myth that there is a vast secret parallel world of Cobol programmers slaving away in gigantic cubicle farms.
fortran, c, c++ or maybe ada
Fortran is used for HPC, but even there C++ is displacing it.
Ada is not even used by the military anymore for new projects. Airbus uses it for their flight control computers. It is mostly dead.
Funny that you'd think any of this tax would go towards the stated purpose.
Who cares? Taxes targeted for specific spending purposes are stupid. They are usually just a ploy to get people to vote for dumb taxes. "You have to vote for the mustache tax because it will be used to feed crippled orphans!!!" Whatever.
Taxes and spending need to balance out (a requirement of Washington's constitution), but decisions on what to tax, and what to spend it on, should be made separately.
In this particular case, one of the targeted uses is for government spending on "clean energy", which is stupid. The whole point of the carbon tax is to incentivize private enterprise to make clean energy. The government should focus on other things (maybe feeding crippled orphans).
I don't like most taxes, but this seems sensible to me. If you believe AGW is real, then we need a solution. The liberal answer is usually "Have the government micromanage everything", so as a free market capitalist I am happy that this time their solution is 1) Tax the externalities, 2) Let the market solve the details.
Slashdot Mirror
So how long after the study has concluded would any flu virus remain viable in the "hotel"
At most they will survive for 24 hours on hard surfaces if the temperature is low and the humidity is high.
They will be viable for a shorter time on soft surfaces, or if the temperature is higher or the humidity lower.
Cold viruses can last longer, up to 7 days.
If you need "Stock market police" then get the government to do it
Because the SEC did such a superb job regulating CDOs back in 2007?
... rather than a business as the business is in the business of profit.
That means they have skin in the game, and a strong incentive to get it right.
Shorting did not prevent the housing bubble.
It made it less severe.
And there is no mechanism stops lending in the housing market related to if more people had shorted, and done so earlier.
If more people had shorted, housing prices would have fallen months or even years earlier, when the bubble was smaller.
Like many other forms of greed, shorting is good.
Agile is no better and no worse that any other way of doing business.
BDUF / Waterfall is way worse than Agile.
Hitler was a vegan.
No he wasn't. He ate eggs and dairy.
Basicly, -MAX_INT.
32 or 64 bit? 32 is not enough. There have been short squeezes that have cost investors more than 2^32 USD.
Brokers should have some liability here
No, they should not. Brokers are not babysitters. Before an individual investor is allowed to short (or buy on margin) they must read and sign pages and pages of warnings. There is no way that any of these people can claim "but I didn't understand the risk".
The spot price is almost always close to the last price for securities with a healthy daily volume.
Unless something happens in the real world.
An investor who is afraid of a sharp spike in TSLA could by a call
Which, after transaction fees, would more than wipe out any expected profit from the short. That is like placing a bet that a horse will win, and another bet that it will lose. The only one making money is the bookie.
... or if it happened overnight he bought into overly volatile stock
"Volatile" is a description of a stock's HISTORY, not its future. You have no way of knowing the future.
Can you guess what was one of the least volatile stocks back in 2008? Volkswagen. Rock stable industrial firm, with hard assets and steady predictable profts. Then out of the blue it skyrocketed in price in a few SECONDS, bankrupting several financial institutions holding short positions.
"Monitoring a spreadsheet" would have done nothing for them.
... or theres some company-specific event causing serious pressure, its not going to move that fast.
There are "company specific events" EVERYDAY. If Tesla releases a statement that their sales bumped up, or their costs fell, or that they just brought a fully automated assembly line online, the HFTers will respond and push up the price in milliseconds. They don't even wait for a human to read the report. They have text analysis programs (written in compiled languages, not interpreted) scan the report for key words and phrases, and then automatically trigger trades.
Your claim that stock prices only move slowly and smoothly is absurd.
if the background check takes more than X days you have to issue the permit.
Why should it take more than X seconds? It is a database lookup.
That's horrific and explains why the murder rate there is almost 10% higher than California.
CCW was legalized state-wide in 1987, and the murder rate has declined by nearly half since then.
The difference between homicide in Florida and California is mostly due to demography and culture.
Florida is too dangerous to go to now.
Florida has always been relatively dangerous. Just don't deal drugs or hang out with criminals, and you will be fine.
Just because the media said they didn't know of any doesn't mean there weren't hundreds.
Really? So you think there are hundreds of people willing to commit murder, but unwilling to carry a concealed gun without a permit?
Many states allow unrestricted conceal carry, with no license required. When they passed laws to allow this, some people predicted that shootings would soar since every road rage incident would turn into a homicide. Others predicted that crime would fall since more armed and law abiding people would be a deterrent. Here's what actually happened: It didn't make any difference.
he tweeted that he was looking forward the unemployment numbers coming out, which he did two hours before they were officially realised.
The unemployment report can move the stock market. So why is this monetizeable information given to politicians hours before it is released to the public?
The big concern should not be that Donald "leaked" the info, but that he had the info in the first place.
Again, anyone who shorts a stock can cut his losses any moment he wants by re-buying the stock
Do you understand how stock markets work? Do you think a high frequency trader is going to give you a courtesy call before placing a buy order that will push the price beyond your ability to pay?
In 2008 20% of VW shares were owned by the government of Lower Saxony. 74% were owned by the Porsche family and corporation. 13% of shares were shorted. When Porsche publicized their position, the shorties needed to buy more than 80% of the other shares to cover their position, which is completely implausible, especially since these other stockholders had NO reason to sell since the share price was obviously going to skyrocket (it subsequently quintupled).
Yes. But that's true with all gambling.
No it isn't. If I bet $10 at the blackjack table, the most I can lose is $10. So no deep pockets are needed.
With a short, there is no loss limit. The 2008 VW short squeeze resulted in ten of billions in losses, and bankrupted many investors.
Investors shorting Alibaba have lost over $16B.
They really should outlaw short positions
No they shouldn't. Shorties provide a valuable check on inflated prices and help to root out corruption and fraud. Muddy Waters is a well known shorty. They investigate public companies, looking for inflated stock prices based on accounting fraud or other corrupt practices. If they uncover malfeasance, they take a short position, and then publicize their findings, driving down the price and reaping a profit. This prevents a much bigger crash that would occur if the fraud was able to continue.
Muddy Waters has been especially successful shorting Chinese companies listed in America on the NYSE and NASDAQ.
Go see the movie "The Big Short". Front Point Partners and others made a lot of money shorting the housing market, but the bubble, and ensuing crash, would have been much smaller if more people shorted it, and did so earlier.
Also, anyone can hold short positions, not just institutions.
Shorts are dangerous and usually foolish for anyone without both deep pockets and non-public information.
Most used is probably cobal
I have met hundreds of developers. Many of them work in finance, payroll, and business process programming. None of them have used Cobol in more than 20 years. I am sure there are a few legacy Cobol programs still out there, but it is not common at all, and it is a myth that there is a vast secret parallel world of Cobol programmers slaving away in gigantic cubicle farms.
fortran, c, c++ or maybe ada
Fortran is used for HPC, but even there C++ is displacing it.
Ada is not even used by the military anymore for new projects. Airbus uses it for their flight control computers. It is mostly dead.
And how much CO2 could we realistically store in a safe place (ruling out the ocean) ?
Plenty. Any geological structure that once held oil or NG can hold CO2.
Since liquified CO2 is heavier than hydrocarbons, it will displace them upwards, and can be used for enhanced oil recovery by carbon dioxide flooding.
Here is a list of current CO2-EOR projects.
The obvious solution is to make the carbon tax revenue neutral by cutting other taxes that are even more regressive, such as payroll taxes.
Boeing is already moving jobs out of Washington and into South Carolina. Additional taxes would accelerate the transition.
Funny that you'd think any of this tax would go towards the stated purpose.
Who cares? Taxes targeted for specific spending purposes are stupid. They are usually just a ploy to get people to vote for dumb taxes. "You have to vote for the mustache tax because it will be used to feed crippled orphans!!!" Whatever.
Taxes and spending need to balance out (a requirement of Washington's constitution), but decisions on what to tax, and what to spend it on, should be made separately.
In this particular case, one of the targeted uses is for government spending on "clean energy", which is stupid. The whole point of the carbon tax is to incentivize private enterprise to make clean energy. The government should focus on other things (maybe feeding crippled orphans).
Seattle has never meant a tax it didn't like.
I don't like most taxes, but this seems sensible to me. If you believe AGW is real, then we need a solution. The liberal answer is usually "Have the government micromanage everything", so as a free market capitalist I am happy that this time their solution is 1) Tax the externalities, 2) Let the market solve the details.
Also, what could Intel possibly gain by lying? Of course the truth would come out, they would have to walk it back, look foolish, and apologize.
It was mostly likely an unintentional omission, because that is the only thing that makes sense.
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.