Pump and dump, distort and short

I like Chris Cox (try saying it like Sir Mix-A-lot). I liked him as a congressman, and I like him (mostly) as SEC chairman. Even so, I came down pretty hard on his naked short selling announcement last week (let me re-phrase: his announcement on naked short selling). I’m certainly not for naked short selling (it’s illegal anyway), but I envisioned a repeat of the commodities “speculators” scapegoating we witnessed recently being applied to all short sellers. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, and Cox set to reassure skeptics in an op-ed piece in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal. A sample:

“Abusive naked short selling is far different from ordinary short selling, which is a healthy and necessary part of a free market. Manipulative naked short selling is one worry investors shouldn’t have.”