"Okay so "being around since the 1600s", that's a good reason for it to stay around? A less than intelligent viewpoint."
My point here which you obviously missed, is that short selling has been around since the beginning- it's part of the Stock market. So it's always going to have a role whether you like it or not. If you can't accept that, then the Stock Market is no place for you.
I'm not sure where I ever made the argument short selling was such a great thing. However if it's such a bad thing and if HFT is suppressing the market and driving down stock prices like many on here seem to believe, then why is the US market( The king of short selling and HFT) near all time highs? Alot of these small cap ASX equities that people on here invest in, don't even have shorts on offer anyway & real HFT firms wouldn't even waste there time with them.
Ofcourse regulators are going to try and control short selling during obvious times of panic and extreme volatility, just like they put limit up restrictions on raging commodity markets. Even if they didn't ban short selling during times of panic, the markets would still end up correcting themselves anyway, as shorts HAVE to cover at some point, otherwise they'll get burnt in a short squeeze and end up with nothing.
I think the trouble is that most of you on here who oppose short selling and HFT, don't actually understand either of them...
