Turkey Joins Greece, South Korea in Curbing Short Sales After Global Rout

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-10/turkey-scrutinizes-short-sales-amid-rout-after-bans-in-greece-south-korea.html

Turkey moved to curb short sales and threatened “severe penalties” for stock manipulation, joining nations from Greece to South Korea in trying to stem bearish bets after the worst tumble in global shares since 2008.

The minimum cash or equity required to initiate a short sale on the Istanbul Stock Exchange was raised to 70 percent from 50 percent, according to an e-mailed statement from Turkey’s Capital Markets Board today. In a short sale, an investor borrows a security and sells it, expecting to profit from a decline by repurchasing it later at a lower price.

Turkish regulators are investigating whether short sellers manipulated share prices after the ISE National 100 Index tumbled 19 percent this month. South Korea began a three-month ban on short sales yesterday, while Greece started a two-month prohibition on Aug. 9. Italy increased disclosure rules for short sales in July.

The curbs in Turkey are “basically a confidence move to reduce the volatility, particularly in times like these,” Omer Omerbas, head of research at Ekspres Invest, an Istanbul-based brokerage, said in a phone interview today.

Saw it on BBC

in this crisis.

right or wrong -- it paints a very different picture.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-12/asian-stocks-copper-climb-on-u-s-data-euro-weakens-treasuries-advance.html

Stocks Climb in Europe as U.S. Index Futures Advance

snip
About $6.77 trillion has been wiped off the value of global equity markets since July 26, after S&P downgraded U.S. debt for the first time, riots swept across Britain and Europe’s debt crisis deepened. Data today showed French economic growth stalled last quarter and euro-region industrial production unexpectedly fell in June, while reports later may show U.S. consumer confidence weakened. France, Spain, Italy and Belgium banned short selling of equities yesterday.

Self preservation is important.