Widespread naked short selling is a "loony conspiracy theory" according to Forbes. I don't know if they allow a small number of reads by non-subscribers.
A group of hucksters, led by a cynical lawyer, have conjured an excuse for stock collapses and created a community now talking up violence against anyone in their way.
www.forbes.com
The mere fact that consistent proof cannot be brought makes most cases intended to address the negative aspects of naked short selling nearly impossible to win.
Add to this how people do have a tendency to place faith in boogeymen without expending the time and effort to prove it. It is easier this way, and satisfies a person's need to quickly explain the inexplicable.
Think of this as a corollary to "Any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." ― Arthur C.
Clarke
Any complex system involving the vagaries of chaos theory will turn such an investigation into a "find the needle in the haystack" endeavor. Except that the haystack to be searched is also part of a tornado. The variables involved change faster than they can be analyzed.
Still, there is a fundamental problem in the very idea of being able to buy or sell imaginary shares. Granted, before millisecond data transfer was a thing, the time and distance factor for conducting a trade required a buffer. Carrying the order to the market by horseback certainly was a problem that had to be addressed in order for traders to participate from anywhere. Options offered a reasonable solution to that problem.
Perhaps a problem which no longer exists no longer needs a solution.
It seems the primary purpose of time-delay in trading today is often still being used as a buffer, but the mechanisms are different and have opened up what would otherwise be a fair market to exploitation by savvy traders whose motivation is completely detached from any interest in the fundamentals of the stock being traded.
They don't care about whether or not their trades cause damage to a company worthy of preservation, or, stoke the fires for a company which would otherwise go bankrupt if left to its own devices.
The problem is more one of ethics and conscience, or, the lack thereof. Another human trait that a subset of the race will gravitate toward because it appears as a shortcut to bolster their survival. This cognitive bias toward choosing to harm others in order to survive is a "path of least resistance" problem, and is the basis of nearly all criminal activity. This sort of problem cannot be solved in a courtroom, it can only be solved through education in adherence to the basic principles necessary for a polite society to exist.
Lets just say I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to be quickly resolved. Instead, I accept that there be dragons here, and do my best to avoid troubled waters. Doing so by avoiding falling into the trap of thinking I can demonstrate with fact the existence of a dragon, which will always remain elusive. By its very nature, the dragon exists primarily in the vast number of variables determined by individuals' choices.
I believe in people's propensity for making poor choices for what appears to them in the moment to be good reasons.
People, are a problem.
HODL
www.teslarati.com
Don’t even get me started on PEG ratio comps
www.currentmarketvaluation.com
www.macrotrends.net
