Don't Like What's Happening? Change the Rules! - SEC BANS Short Selling on 799 Stocks

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took what it called "emergency action" Friday and temporarily banned investors from short-selling 799 financial companies.

The temporary ban, aimed at helping restore falling stock prices that have shattered confidence in the financial markets, takes effect immediately

I wake up this morning and this is what I find, the entire rules of the game changed overnight. SEC bans short selling

It's one thing to ban naked shorts but to just change a major trading method on certain stocks overnight?

I thought these guys loved free markets? Comrade, not when they are losing money on their stocks?

The ban, covering a list of 799 stocks, takes effect immediately and runs until midnight on Oct. 2. The SEC said it may extend the order if it's necessary to protect investors, but it won't last more than 30 days.

list of stocks that cannot be shorted. Of course Citigroup is in the list.

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uptick rule - buzz what is it?

I think there are now a lot of buzz words flying around that are affecting main street (that's us) where people don't know what they are talking about because it's all obscure trading rules.

Uptick rule was a regulatory rule that stopped the short sellers from increasing downward pressure on a stock when it was in free fall. The rule has been around forever, but removed in 2007.

There are a lot of questions today on why this rule was not put back into place since it worked quite well since the 1930's and instead this sudden outright ban.

Investopedia has some same definitions to decode this nomenclature unique to traders.