New York – The damage being done to stocks through short selling, where Wall Street’s most legendary institutions are losing value at alarming rates, could be the work of financial terrorism.
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Cramer’s been talking to the short sellers he knows, and that’s the theory they’ve been putting forward. His sources said that it’s doubtful that the market’s traditional short sellers are behind the negative action we’ve seen lately. So there is the possibility that someone else has been trying to wreak havoc in the markets rather than just profit from the problems of Goldman Sachs and others.
Cramer, who was merely relaying what he heard, did say that, given the fact that the U.S. is in a “financial nationally emergency,” the “financial terrorism thing, to me, has to be put on the table just because the regular short sellers are not doing this.”
The Mad Money host urged the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority, which just banned short selling in financial stocks and now requires stricter disclosure from short sellers, to find out who’s on the other side of these trades.
In the U.S., though, the Securities and Exchange Commission should bring back the uptick rule, Cramer said. That rule requires a stock to tick up in price before it can be sold short.
Cramer’s against the outright banning of short selling, unless the threat of financial terrorism is real. He applauded New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for launching a probe into illegal short-selling practices, but said, “You can’t ban the stuff. That’s wrong.”
“Just bring back the old rules,” Cramer said. “They worked for a long time.”
Investigation of short sellers? Short selling makes the markets more efficient. Restrictions on short selling forces valuable information out of the market place.
This investigation smacks of censorship.
After the Bear Stern bailout a senator (I think it was Jim Bunning) said he woke up and thought he was in France. I woke up yesterday and thought I was in the Soviet Union.
There are no Islamists who have the money to pull so many strings and practically bring down the stock markets not only in the US but everywhere else. Only the higher ups in the system can do it – you know the Rockefellers and Rothschilds…..Maybe this is their route to their dream of the New World Order……
It’s definitely Obama’s fault.
9:37 – I thought the Saudis and the people in the UAR and Abu Dabbi had loads of money from oil way beyond the Rockafeller fortunes.
anony 9:37 welcome to 2008 where the arabs are some of the richest people on the planet. The conspiracy set forth above smells a bit, but it’s not out of the question.
We need Elliot Spitzer! “the Sheriff on Wall Street”
the last time I read the news dubai and saudi princess etc etc had more money then any of us would ever dear dream.
The terrorists he is talking about are not Islamic. He is talking about the Russians!!
Think about it… For all practical purposes we are at war with Russia. They hate us and our goverment knows it.. however there is nothing our goverment can do, if they use millitary action we would start WW3.. and the Russians know that too!
The Russians are smart people… they have billions or barrels of oil and lot of natural gas and a lot of comoditys such as gold, silver, plat, steel etc etc.
First they manipulated crude oil prices.. FOR 3 YEARS!! and we did nothing about it. How did they do it?? they took billions of dollars that they have all over the world in all sorts of off shore holding compenies (remember time magazine.. Putin said to be worth close to $40bil personally) They went long all the Oil and nat gas futures on every market especially in the US.. plus they were ones producing a lot of it. so it was really easy for them.. they were working both sides.
As soon as the party was over, when oil prices started dropping they cashed out a few hundered billion and took most of it and shorted our financial institutions…and made another few hundred billlion…
Whats now? after they cashed out they took the money and started buying up all the gold (real russian style) that they could.
They got us good.. real good!!
We are a bunch of morons.. lets move to Moscow 🙂
LEts blame Bush. Bush caused 9/11
bush caused the hurricanes.
bush causes many disasters.
bush caused hillary to lose her election!
WOW. Lets blame bush for everything.
I never knew Bush can be resposnsible for so much!
(overheard a liberal talking like this on the train to work today.)
The real problem which nobody wants to admit, is greed caused all these problems. Lenders like Fannie May dropped all rules causing house prices to rise to ridiculous levels, and now the deleveraging is very very painful.
It was fraud on the part of the brokers who sold the stuff, and fraud from the US govt. telling everybody that the system is strong and safe. Warren Buffet warned about this years ago and nobody listened.
“Just bring back the old rules,” Cramer said. “They worked for a long time.”
It is the Republicans who have been working for decades to get rid of almost all the rules and regulations.
short selling should not be permitted.
They are not banning Short Selling… They are tightening restrictions on Naked Short Selling, where crooked traders and brokers float an IOU into the market without having the shares to back up the trade. That is illegal your not trading actually trading a financial instrument, how then should you be allowed to profit from that. This ban should be extended to the entire market. This is a safety and security issue not a commerce issue.
Uh, yeah, maybe we should blame Bush.
What was the worst thing people complained about ten years ago? A little pritzus? There was no 9/11, economy was good, Israel was peaceful…
Can someone explain in simple terms what short selling is and how it affects the markets and economic stabiity? Thank you.
LEts blame Bush
Some of my fellow conservatives have been blaming Clinton for every conceivable problem even though he’s been out of office for years. Now some liberals are just playing the same game. It’s easier than actually looking into a problem and finding the real source and doing something about it.
To 9/18/08
10:52pm
You know as crazy as that theory sounds, its not at all impossible for it to have turned out that way. Considering that only a few weeks ago, the US and Russia were at their worst over what happened in Geogia. The timing of the financial crises is just too close to that for it to be just coincidence. Does anyone here agree?
1984jew 10:30PM. The trouble with “The Sheriff on Wall Street” is, that he’s been caught SHORT on Times Square……….!!!!!!
to 2:41.. thanks for being the first person to agree with me… i have nothing to back this up with.. i just came up with the theory and think it makes sense.
im not sure if people are being sarcastic about blaminmg bush or not.. but thats crazy.. this is not bushs fault at all.
bush is the commander and chief and his main job is the security of our country… if at sept 11 2001 someone would have told you that there would not be one more terrorsit attack on US soil by sept 2008 u would think he was crazy… bush did a great job over the last 8 years keeping us as safe as possible at home.
Paulson, greenspan, bernanke and the SEC are the goverment agenices that shold have picked up on this 3 years ago.
good shabbos
Yidden…..I think you are right. Since9/11 every institution in the US has SYSTEMATICALLY been undermined. I don’t think that this is a “coincedence” there are “hostiles” on US soil that are taking the US apart piece by piece and the US “politicians” are either to Politically Correct and don’t dare to point a finger or are too “stupid intellectually” to actually realize that this is a deliberate inhouse job.