Govt trading ban could have unintended results

Friday September 19, 5:07 pm ET
By Marcy Gordon and Stevenson Jacobs, AP Business Writers

Big SEC step to ban short-selling of financial stocks could have unintended consequences

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government’s unprecedented move Friday to ban people from betting against financial stocks might be a salve for the market’s turmoil but could also carry serious unintended consequences.

In a bid to shore up investor confidence in the face of the spiraling market crisis, the Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily banned all short-selling in the shares of 799 financial companies. Short selling is a time-honored method for profiting when a stock drops.

The ban took effect immediately Friday and extends through Oct. 2. The SEC said it might extend the ban — so that it would last for as many as 30 calendar days in total — if it deems that necessary.

That window could be enough time to calm the roiling financial markets, with the Bush administration’s massive new programs to buy up Wall Street’s toxic debt possibly starting to have a salutary effect by then.

The short-selling ban is “kind of a time-out,” said John Coffee, a professor of securities law at Columbia University. “In a time of crisis, the dangers of doing too little are far greater than the dangers of doing too much.”

But on Wall Street, professional short-sellers said they were being unfairly targeted by the SEC’s prohibition. And some analysts warned of possible negative consequences, maintaining that banning short-selling could actually distort — not stabilize — edgy markets.

Indeed, hours after the new ban was announced, some of its details appeared to be a work in progress. The SEC said its staff was recommending exemptions from the ban for trades market professionals make to hedge their investments in stock options or futures.

“I don’t think it’s going to accomplish what they’re after,” said Jeff Tjornehoj, senior analyst at fund research firm Lipper Inc. Without short sellers, he said, investors will have a harder time gauging the true value of a stock.

“Most people want to be in a stock for the long run and want to see prices go up. Short sellers are useful for throwing water in their face and saying, `Oh yeah? Think about this,'” Tjornehoj said. As a result, restricting the practice could inflate the value of some stocks, opening the door for a big downward correction later.

Hidden Credit Risks of ETFs

Friday September 19, 2:00 pm ET
By John Gabriel
Morningstar.com

Most exchange-traded products are index investments, backed by the actual portfolio of equities or bonds. Although an investor may be taking on the underlying risks of those portfolio holdings, they are not exposed to any risk from the issuer’s financial state. For example, if State Street (STT) were to go bankrupt (unlikely, even in these tumultuous times), investors in the SPDRs ETF (SPY) would be made whole by their claims on the underlying stock investments held by the unit trust.

However, not all exchange-traded products have this safety. Exchange-traded notes, or ETNs, are actually promissory notes with no claim on an underlying portfolio, so they are only as trustworthy as the debt of their backing bank. Morningstar’s director of ETF analysis, Scott Burns, recently wrote an article on ETNs and the credit risk that they face.

Besides ETNs’ inherent credit risk, some ETFs also posses a certain amount of credit risk. Some ETFs cannot invest directly in their underlying assets, relying on swaps, futures, or other derivatives to match the return on their index. These derivatives open those ETFs to counterparty risk, the risk that the institution on the other side of their trade will default, which could leave a fund with no return on its assets or even a loss. The ETFs vulnerable to counterparty risk fall into two major categories: leveraged funds and commodities funds.

Lemons into Lemonade

These are about the only things we could find trading up over the last few days.

Many look primed for more gains as we enter the weakest month of the year with many sectors looking to have failed at key resistance.

Not a positive look here

Financial and Consumer Discretionary sectors lead the way lower.

XLF (Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF) looks to be rolling over. Multiple indicators confirm the XLF is running out of steam (MACD, RSI, Relative Strength, ADX).

Our entry into the SKF (UltraShort Financials ProShares) looks poised to deliver great returns going into the fall.