Short Sale Position and Transaction Reporting
 

As Required by Section 417 of the
 

Dodd‐Frank Wall Street Reform
 

and
 

Consumer Protection Act
 

This is a report of a study by the Staff of the Division of Economic and Risk 

Analysis of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Commission has 

expressed no view regarding the analysis, findings, or conclusions contained 

herein. 

June 5, 2014 
	 	

	 	

 

 

 

 

Executive Summary

Congressional Mandate

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank 

Act” or “Act”) was signed into law on July 21, 2010.1

 Section 417(a)(2) of the Act directs the 

Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation (the “Division” and now called the Division 

of Economic and Risk Analysis) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the 

“Commission”) to conduct a study of the feasibility, benefits, and costs of: 

(A) requiring the reporting of short sale positions in publicly listed securities in real 

time, 

(i) publicly or, in the alternative, 

(ii) only to the Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority 

(“FINRA”), 

and of the feasibility, benefits, and costs of: 

(B) conducting a voluntary pilot program in which public companies will agree to have 

all trades of their shares marked 

(i) “short” 

(ii) “market maker short” 

(iii) “buy” 

(iv) “buy-to-cover” or 

(v) “long” 

and reported as such in real time through the Consolidated Tape.2 

This is the report of that study made to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 

Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Financial Services of the House of Representatives 

specified in Section 417(b)(2) of the Act. 

1

 Pub. L. No. 111-203 (July 21, 2010). 

2 See infra note 206 for a description of the Consolidated Tape. 
 

	 	 	

	 	 	

 

 

Summary of Conclusions

This report represents the considered views of the Division, as informed by the processes 

described below, but the views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect those of the 

Commission or the individual Commissioners, or of staff of other Offices or Divisions. 

The Division studied the feasibility, benefits, and costs of a real-time short position 

reporting regime (“Real-Time Short Position Reporting”) to the public or only to FINRA and the 

Commission and the feasibility, benefits, and costs of adding new, short sale-related marks to the 

Consolidated Tape (“Transaction Marking”) in a voluntary pilot program (“Transaction Marking 

Pilot”). To assess the feasibility, benefits, and costs, the Division compared Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting and Transaction Marking to a baseline that includes currently available data 

as well as potential data from the prospective Consolidated Audit Trail (“CAT”).3

 The Division 

concludes that none of these alternatives is likely to be cost-effective when compared to the 

baseline. 

Baseline for Analysis

The Division examined the benefits and costs of Real-Time Short Position Reporting and 

the Transaction Marking Pilot by comparing the information provided by each to currently 

available and potentially forthcoming short sale data. A considerable amount of short sale data is 

currently available to investors, issuers, regulators, and other market participants and other data 

will potentially be available in the future. For example, investors, issuers, regulators, and/or other 

3

 Section III.B.1 infra contains a discussion of Exchange Act Rule 613, which requires that the national securities 

exchanges and FINRA submit a National Market System (“NMS”) Plan to the Commission to create, implement and 

maintain a Consolidated Audit Trail (“CAT”). Rule 613 provides that such NMS Plan require that the exchanges and 

FINRA and their members report specific data to a central repository. If the Commission approves the NMS Plan 

submitted by the SROs, certain of the data that would be required to be reported under the Plan would provide 

regulators with much of the short selling information that is the subject of this study. See Exchange Act Release No. 

67457 (Jul. 18, 2012), 77 FR 45721 (Aug. 1, 2012). 

ii 
 

	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

market participants can get either free or paid access to short interest data, short sale volume, 

short sale transactions, and some securities lending data.4

 In addition, regulators have access to 

Large Trader data5 and also could have access to CAT data. The Division found that market 

participants and other commentators are generally interested in getting more data on short 

selling, citing to shortcomings in currently available information.6

 However, the Division also 

found that few issuers or investors currently directly utilize some of the additional short sale data 

that recently became available, including daily data.7 

The Division investigated the feasibility of Real-Time Short Position Reporting and the 

Transaction Marking Pilot by examining the extent to which current systems can be altered to 

accommodate either short sale reporting regime and the cost to do so. For example, the Division 

considered changes to EDGAR,8

 FINRA’s Regulation Filing Applications system,9 the 

Consolidated Tape,10 order entry and order management systems,11 and trade reporting systems.12 

The Division also considered the most feasible ways to create marks that participants currently 

do not collect or record. 

Public Real‐Time Short Position Reporting Program

The Division estimates that data from Real-Time Short Position Reporting would contain 

approximately 24 million short position changes per day initially.13 The information from public 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting would contain more timely information and potentially 

4 See infra Section III.A.
 5 See infra Section III.B.2.
 6 See infra Section III.D. For example, some commenters view current short interest as stale, while other 

commenters believe short reporting should be symmetric with reports on holdings. 

7 See infra Section III.A.3 8

 EDGAR is the Commission’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. See infra Section V.A. 9 See infra Sections III.A.1 and V.A.
 10 See infra note 206.
 11 See infra Section IV.D. 12 Id.
 13 See infra note 397.
 

iii 
 

 

more detailed information than is currently available publicly. The volume of the data and the 

potential for data errors could limit the utility, and thus the benefits, of this information. 

Nonetheless, the Division believes that there are modest benefits in public Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting in discouraging abusive short selling, particularly if it facilitates better 

monitoring for abusive short selling or real-time surveillance by self-regulatory organizations 

(“SROs”). Finally, Real-Time Short Position Reporting could facilitate new research on short 

selling and short sale strategies. 

The potential net effect of public Real-Time Short Position Reporting on market quality 

and capital formation is unclear. More precise and timely information about short selling could 

help the market adjust to new information faster, promoting price efficiency and hence capital 

formation. However, the particular information in Real-Time Short Position Reporting could also 

facilitate copycat and order anticipation strategies that could discourage liquidity supply, 

fundamental analysis vital to price efficiency, and hedging that facilitates capital formation. The 

risk of these effects may be amplified if Real-Time Short Position Reporting identifies short 

sellers. 

Based on public comments,14 the Division believes that public Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting would likely require significant implementation costs because using current 

infrastructure may be infeasible. In addition, the Division found that short sellers are often in the 

best position to report their own transactions, but some do not receive trade confirmations in real 

time. These short sellers could also incur significant ongoing compliance costs to collect and 

report their short positions in real time. 

14 See infra note 437 and Section V.A.7. 

iv 
 

	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 		

	 	 	

 

Real‐Time Short Position Reporting Only to the Commission and FINRA

The Division believes that Real-Time Short Position Reporting only to the Commission 

and FINRA would provide these regulators with short selling data that is more timely and precise 

than the data that is currently available to them. However, if the Commission approves the CAT 

NMS Plan15 and CAT is implemented, the Division believes that Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting would provide regulators with little additional information than would be available 

from CAT. Further, the feasibility concerns and the implementation and ongoing compliance 

costs suggest that public reporting may not be substantially more costly than reporting to the 

Commission and FINRA only. 

Transaction Marking Pilot

The Division first considered the feasibility, benefits, and costs of Transaction Marking, 

which is a necessary component of analyzing the Transaction Marking Pilot. The Division 

expects that data from the Consolidated Tape, containing the specified transaction marks, would 

contain approximately 23 million transaction reports per day initially.16 The information from 

Transaction Marking would contain more timely and more detailed information than short sale 

transactional data available today and more timely data than might be available from the CAT.17 

However, the volume of the data and the cost of subscribing to data feeds could limit the utility, 

and thus the benefits, of this information unless data vendors provide summarized data. In 

addition, each transaction mark could represent many possible strategies, rendering investment 

decisions based on the marks risky, particularly for those who do not use the data to build trading 

models. Nonetheless, the Division believes that there are benefits in the information provided by 

15 See supra note 3. 16 See infra note 260 and accompanying text. 17 See supra note 97. 

v 
 

 

Transaction Marking in more quickly inferring changes in market sentiment and helping to 

provide more accurate information during times of stress and increased uncertainty. Transaction 

Marking could also discourage abusive short selling, particularly if it enhances real-time 

surveillance by self-regulatory organizations (SROs). Finally, Transaction Marking could 

facilitate new research on short selling and short sale strategies, though not to the extent of RealTime Short Position Reporting. 

As under Real-Time Short Position Reporting, the potential net effect of Transaction 

Marking on market quality and capital formation is unclear. More detailed and timely 

information about short selling could help the market adjust to new information faster, promoting 

price efficiency and hence capital formation. On the other hand, the transactions marks could 

reduce liquidity because the “market maker short” mark could render market makers vulnerable 

to order anticipation strategies, particularly in stocks with few market makers. Transaction marks 

could also facilitate copycat and order anticipation strategies that could discourage both the 

fundamental analysis that is vital to price efficiency and hedging that facilitates capital 

formation. The Division believes that the risk of these effects on price efficiency and capital 

formation would likely be less than the risk under Real-Time Short Position Reporting that 

identifies short sellers. 

In accordance with several commenters,18 the Division believes that Transaction Marking 

would likely require significant implementation and compliance costs. These costs would be 

incurred to update order entry, order management, and transaction reporting systems. However, 

the Division believes that the potential implementation and compliance costs of Transaction 

Marking could be much lower than those of Real-Time Short Position Reporting. 

18 See infra note 320 and Section IV.D. 

vi 
 

 

Finally, the Division considered the benefits, costs, and feasibility of the pilot aspect of 

the Transaction Marking Pilot. In particular, the Division considered whether such a pilot would 

provide data that could reliably test hypotheses about the economic effect of Transaction 

Marking. The Division believes that the issuers’ ability to volunteer to participate in the pilot 

could be harmful to the utility of the pilot. The Division is concerned that researchers, including 

those in the Division, would not be able reliably to apply the results of the voluntary pilot to the 

stocks of all issuers that do not volunteer to participate in the pilot. In addition, the Division is 

concerned that the ability for issuers to volunteer to participate could render the pilot infeasible if 

too few issuers volunteer to participate. Finally, several commenters stated that the 

implementation and compliance costs of a Transaction Marking Pilot would be at least as high as 

those for Transaction Marking, regardless of how many issuers volunteer to participate.19 A pilot 

would also create additional costs associated with administering the pilot, though these may be 

small relative to the implementation costs of Transaction Marking. 

Conclusion

As discussed in detail below, overall, the Division concludes that none of these 

alternatives is likely to be cost-effective when compared to the baseline, which includes the 

CAT. The Division concludes that the benefits from making Real-Time Short Position Reporting 

information available to the public and regulators are likely to be modest. In particular, the 

Division believes that Real-Time Short Position Reporting and Transaction Marking would 

provide regulators with little additional information than would already be available from the 

CAT. However, the Division concludes that the implementation and compliance costs associated 

with these alternatives, which could include updating or building a system to collect short 

19 See infra note 360 and Section IV.E.3. 

vii 
 

 

position reports, are likely to be significant, even if such data is made available only to 

regulators. Implementing the CAT will enable the Commission to reassess the extent of any 

additional benefits that may be derived from requiring Real-Time Short Position Reporting and 

Transaction Marking, and the costs of any additional infrastructure needed to collect and record 

such information. Finally, the Division concludes that a voluntary pilot in Transaction Marking 

is unlikely to be of much utility. 

While this report concludes that, at this time, the short sale reporting regimes studied are 

unlikely to be cost-effective when compared to the baseline, the analysis contained in this report 

should still provide valuable insight to potential future rulemaking regarding short sale 

disclosure. 

viii 
 

Table	 	 	 of Contents

Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... i
 

Congressional Mandate.............................................................................................................. i
 

Summary of Conclusions .......................................................................................................... ii
 

I. Scope and Methodology .............................................................................................................. 1
 

II. Background ................................................................................................................................ 4
 

A. Fundamentals of Short Selling ............................................................................................. 4
 

B. Short Selling Concerns and Regulation ............................................................................... 6
 

C. Short Selling’s Contribution to Market Quality................................................................. 10
 

III. Short Sale Disclosure.............................................................................................................. 16
 

A. Currently and Previously Available Data .......................................................................... 17
 

B. Potentially Forthcoming Short Sale Data ........................................................................... 23
 

C. Foreign Short Sale Data ..................................................................................................... 26
 

D. Interest in Additional Short Sale Data ............................................................................... 29
 

IV. Transaction Marking Pilot ...................................................................................................... 33
 

A. Information from Transaction Marking ............................................................................. 38
 

B. Limitations on Information from Transaction Marking ..................................................... 41
 

C. Economic Benefits and Costs ............................................................................................. 48
 

D. Feasibility and Compliance Costs ...................................................................................... 60
 

E. Voluntary Pilot ................................................................................................................... 64
 

V. Real-Time Short Position Reporting........................................................................................ 70
 

A. Real-Time Publicly-Identified Short Position Reporting................................................... 72
 

B. Aggregated, Non-identified, Real-Time Short Position Reporting .................................... 93
 

C. Definition of Short Sale Positions .................................................................................... 100
 

D. Calculation Level for Short Sale Positions ...................................................................... 106
 

E. Reporting to FINRA and the Commission Only .............................................................. 108
 

VI. Disclosure of Both Transactions and Positions .................................................................... 112
 

VII. Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................................... 114
 

Appendix A: Schedule of Discussions........................................................................................ 116
 

Appendix B: List of Commenters............................................................................................... 118
 

Appendix C: Related Regulations in Certain Foreign Jurisdictions ........................................... 122
 

Table C.1: Short Sale Position Reporting Regimes .............................................................. 122
 

Table C.2: Short Marking Regimes ...................................................................................... 126
 

Appendix D: Certain Short Sale-Related Regulatory Actions .................................................... 129
 

Appendix E: Evidence on Short Selling and Market Quality ..................................................... 134
 

A. Price Efficiency................................................................................................................ 134
 

B. Liquidity........................................................................................................................... 135
 

Appendix F: Exhibits .................................................................................................................. 137
 

Figure F.1: Short Selling Levels: 2005-2013........................................................................ 137
 

Figure F.2: Short Interest: 2005-2013................................................................................... 138
 

Figure F.3: Availability of Shares to Borrow: 1999-2013 .................................................... 139
 

ix 
I.	 	 	 Scope and Methodology

In conducting its study, the Division considered the broad range of potential benefits and 

costs of the specified reporting regimes. The staff conducting the study included Division 

economists, lawyers, and analysts including those who had conducted earlier studies and 

analyses of short selling, were conversant with the academic literature on short selling, and had 

experience analyzing short sale data. The Division also consulted other Commission Divisions 

and Offices with relevant expertise, including: 

Division of Enforcement; 

Division of Corporation Finance; 

Division of Investment Management; 

Division of Trading and Markets; 

Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations; 

Office of General Counsel; and 

Office of International Affairs. 

In consultation with these other Divisions and Offices, the Division conducted a 

preliminary analysis of the issues before collecting additional information and opinions from 

market participants, outside experts, and the general public. In particular, the Division made an 

initial assessment of the potential benefits and costs and identified feasibility issues of the 

regimes set forth in Section 417 of the Dodd-Frank Act, including the potential utility of the data 

that the regimes would make available to regulators and various market participants. The 

Division considered the likely effect of any new disclosure requirements from the two regimes 

on investing and short selling behavior, and, taking such behavioral changes into account, the 

effects of the availability of any new data on market quality, including price efficiency and 

liquidity, as well as on capital formation. The preliminary analysis also considered the 

compliance costs and technical feasibility of implementing and maintaining the reporting 
 

regimes. This preliminary analysis provided the basis for determining what information to collect 

from market participants, outside experts, and the general public. 

In early 2011 Commission staff began a series of meetings with representatives of a 

variety of industry participants, who provided their perspectives and opinions on both technical 

feasibility issues, and on the broader implications of the potential reporting regimes. Appendix A 

contains details on the participants in those meetings. On May 9, 2011, the Commission, on 

behalf of the Division, published a request for comment from all interested persons.20 The 

Commission received 172 comment letters.21 The Division synthesized the information collected 

and analyzed it to create this report. 

The analysis first sets forth the baseline and discusses how the short sale reporting 

regimes would produce information beyond that in the baseline (“incremental information”). The 

analysis also considers the potential uses of such incremental information before discussing the 

benefits and costs. While the analysis includes consideration of compliance costs to other market 

participants, the analysis of economic benefits and costs focuses primarily on those accruing to 

investors. The Division assessed the feasibility of the short sale reporting regimes under the 

current infrastructure and also considered whether the reporting regimes would require changes 

to current infrastructure. 

This report does not address possible alternative reporting regimes outside the 

contemplation of Section 417(a)(2) of the Act. For example, the study does not analyze 

feasibility, benefits, and costs of the Commission adopting the daily (as opposed to real-time) 

20 See Exchange Act Release No. 64383; (May 3, 2011), 76 FR 26787 (May 9, 2011), available at 

http://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2011/34-64383.pdf. 21 See infra Appendix B: List of Commenters for the list of respondents to this request. Comments are available at 

http://www.sec.gov/comments/4-627/4-627.shtml. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 2 
 

position reporting required in a number of foreign jurisdictions, 22 nor does the study address 

multiple definitions of “real time.” In particular, the report assumes that “real time through the 

Consolidated Tape” refers to the existing reporting requirements and the report addresses the 

feasibility, benefits, and costs of Real-Time Short Position reporting as soon as feasible. 

Similarly, the study of the Transaction Marking Pilot considered only listed companies because 

the Consolidated Tape collects trades and quotes in stocks of these companies only. In addition, 

the Division used the definition of “short sale” in Rule 200 of Regulation SHO under the 

Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) as the interpretation of “short sale” 

transaction.23 However, the Division did consider alternative interpretations of terms in the 

statute, such as a range of interpretations of the term “short positions”, which is not defined in 

the Exchange Act or in Commission Rules. The Division notes that many of the study’s 

conclusions regarding the feasibility, benefits, and costs of the specified regimes may be 

informative to similar possible alternative regimes as well. 

Finally, the Division organized this report to cover the Transaction Marking Pilot before 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting. The Division believes that the Transaction Marking Pilot 

contains fewer alternative interpretations than Real-Time Short Position Reporting. The ordering 

thus allows the report to provide a clean economic analysis of the Transaction Marking Pilot and 

then to build off that economic analysis when discussing Real-Time Short Position Reporting. 

22 See infra Appendix C: Related Regulations in Certain Foreign Jurisdictions for information on short selling 

regulation in foreign jurisdictions. 

23 See 17 CFR 242.200. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 3 
	 	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II. Background

A. Fundamentals of Short Selling

A short sale is the sale of a security that the seller does not own or any sale that is 

consummated by the delivery of a security borrowed by, or for the account of, the seller.24 Data 

made public by self-regulatory organizations (“SROs”) indicate that orders marked “short” under 

current regulations account for approximately 49% of listed equity share volume.25 To deliver the 

security to the purchaser, the short seller often borrows the security, typically from a brokerdealer or an institutional investor.26 The short seller later closes out the position by purchasing 

equivalent securities on the open market, or by using an equivalent security it already owns, and 

returning the security to the lender.27 In general, market participants use short selling to profit 

from an expected downward price movement, to provide liquidity28 in response to unanticipated 

demand, or to hedge the risk of an economic long position in the same security or in a related 

security.29 The risk of short selling, when it is not hedged, is in theory greater than the risk of 

24 See Rule 200(a) of Regulation SHO under the Exchange Act, 17 CFR 242.200(a); see also Exchange Act Release 

No. 50103 (July 28, 2004), 69 FR 48008 (Aug. 6, 2004). 

25 The Division arrived at this estimate using short selling volume data for November 2013 made available by SROs. 

This estimate is consistent with estimates for prior months, and the short percentage varied little from day to day. 

The underlying data can be found at hyperlinks available at http://www.sec.gov/answers/shortsalevolume.htm, and
 

have been provided since August 2009 by the SROs listed therein.

26 See Exchange Act Release No. 50103, 69 FR 48008. 27 Id.
 28 See LARRY HARRIS, TRADING & EXCHANGES 394-95 (2003); and ZVI BODIE, ALEX KANE & ALAN J. MARCUS, 

INVESTMENTS 306-07 (2008) (The terms “market liquidity” and “liquidity” refer to the aspect of market quality that 

enables trades in volume to occur at or near the market price. A liquid security is one in which buyers and sellers can
 

transact in reasonably large sizes with limited impact on price. Market participants provide liquidity when they stand
 

ready to transact at market prices.) 

29 Exchange Act Release No. 54891 (Dec. 7, 2006), 71 FR 75068, 75069 (Dec. 13, 2006); Exchange Act Release 

No. 48709 (Oct. 28, 2003), 68 FR 62972, 62973 (Nov. 6, 2003). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 4 
 

 

 

 

holding unlevered long positions in the sense that long investors cannot lose more than they paid 

for the security, while short sellers can lose as much as the price of the security can rise.30 

While the details of securities lending programs are beyond the scope of this study, 

securities lending is an integral part of the short selling process. The Division provides a brief 

overview for context. Broker-dealers and institutional investors often lend securities in 

connection with short sale transactions as well as to cover and prevent trade fails.31 Typically, an 

institutional investor such as a mutual fund, pension fund, insurance company, or college 

endowment will lend securities to a broker-dealer, which will relend the securities to a customer 

for short selling. The short selling customer will typically secure its obligation to return the 

borrowed security to its broker-dealer lender by posting the short sale proceeds and additional 

margin with the broker-dealer. The broker-dealer borrower, in turn, secures its obligation to 

return the borrowed security to the institutional lender by pledging cash or non-cash collateral 

(though usually cash in the U.S.) in amounts generally ranging between 100% and 105% of the 

daily market value of the loaned securities.32 Institutional lenders receiving cash collateral 

typically reinvest it to generate interest income. When the loaned securities are easy to borrow 

and the collateral is cash, the institutional lender will rebate to the broker-dealer borrower an 

amount equal to a function of an interest rate.33 If loaned securities are hard to borrow and the 

collateral is cash, the broker-dealer borrower may have to pay the institutional lender a rebate 

amount known as a “negative rebate” rather than the reverse.34 If the collateral is non-cash, and 

30 See BODIE, KANE & MARCUS, supra note 28. 31 See Exchange Act Release No. 50103, 69 FR at 40008. 32 See MARK FAULKNER, AN INTRODUCTION TO SECURITIES LENDING (2004).
 33 See STANDARD & POOR’S, AN INTRODUCTION TO SECURITIES LENDING (September 2009). 34 Id.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 5 
	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

regardless of whether the securities are easy or hard to borrow, the borrower will pay the lender a 

loan fee. 

B. Short Selling Concerns and Regulation

Short selling is a controversial practice, and one that has long been subject to regulation.35 

Some fear that short sellers may often attempt to illegally manipulate stock prices.36 In a “bear 

raid,” for example, an equity security is sold short in an effort to drive down the price of the 

security by creating an imbalance of sell-side interest.37 Some blamed bear raids for the 1929 

stock market crash and the market's prolonged inability to recover.38 A number of commenters 

have expressed concern about “short and distort” campaigns and the incentive short positions 

create to spread unverified and possibly false bad news about a company.39 In “short and distort” 

strategies, manipulators first short a stock and then engage in a campaign to spread unverified 

bad news about the stock with the objective of panicking other investors into selling their stock. 

35 S. REP. NO. 73-1455, COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY, REPORT ON STOCK EXCHANGE PRACTICES 

(1934); letter from Professor James J. Angel (Jun. 24, 2011). 

36 See generally the Commission’s 2010 release adopting the short sale circuit breaker price test, Exchange Act 

Release No. 61595 (Feb. 26, 2010), 75 FR 11232, 11235-37 (Mar. 10, 2010) (discussing past and present concerns 

of market participants about manipulative short sale activity). A number of commenters noted concerns with 

potential trade manipulation, see, e.g., letter from Judith Scott, General Counsel, Portfolio Recovery Associates 

(Jun. 24, 2011) (“Portfolio Recovery Associates”).

37 See Exchange Act Release No. 48709 (Oct. 28, 2003), 68 FR 62972 (Nov. 6, 2003). 38 See, e.g., Jonathan R. Macey, Mark Mitchell & Jeffry Netter, Restrictions on Short Sales: An Analysis of the 

Uptick Rule and its Role in View of the October 1987 Stock Market Crash, 74 CORNELL L. REV. 799, 801-802 

(1989) (collecting reports of such allegations).

39 See letters from Naphtali M. Hamlet (May 6, 2011); Ronald Cozzard (May 6, 2011); Eugene H. Vance (May 6, 

2011); Jan Sargent (May 6, 2011); Lee R. Donais, President and CEO, L.R. Donais Company (May 8, 2011); Joseph 

A. Scilla (May 9, 2011); Jane M. Reichold (May 17, 2011); John Gensen (May 18, 2011); Victor Y. Wong (May 20, 

2011); Kevin Rentzsch (May 24, 2011); Lynn C. Jasper (May 27, 2011); Donald L. Eddy (May 28, 2011); Al S. 

(Jun. 10, 2011); Jeffrey D. Morgan, President and CEO, National Investor Relations Institute (Jun. 21, 2011) 

(“NIRI”); Professor James J. Angel; and Dennis Nixon, CEO and Chairman, International Bancshares Corporation 

(July 18, 2011) (“IBC”). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 6 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If successful, the scheme can drive down the price, allowing the manipulators to profit when they 

“buy-to-cover” their short position at the reduced price.40 

In 1934, the Senate Banking and Currency Committee noted that “few subjects relating to 

exchange practices have been characterized by greater differences of opinion than that of short 

selling.”41 Rather than abolish the practice, however, Congress granted the Commission plenary 

power to regulate short sales in listed securities to “purge the markets of the abuses connected 

with these practices.”42 Since that time, the Commission has used this authority to regulate short 

selling, and has refined its approach over time in light of evolving markets and market events.43 

Several specific concerns motivated much of the activity by Congress and the 

Commission. “Unrestricted short selling can exacerbate a declining market in a security by 

increasing pressure from the sell-side, eliminating bids [by executing against them], and causing 

a further reduction in the price of a security by creating an appearance that the security price is 

falling for fundamental reasons.”44 According to a Commission release, market manipulators 

may unlawfully use short selling to drive down share prices “even where there is no fundamental 

basis for a price decline other than general market conditions.”45 Unduly low prices can give rise 

to questions about the underlying financial condition of an issuer that the issuer’s true financial 

condition does not warrant.46 This price decline may impact an issuer’s ability to fulfill its 

outstanding debt obligations, which may be explicitly tied to the share price, and may materially 

40 See BODIE, KANE & MARCUS, supra note 28, at 79-80. 41 See S. Rep. No. 73-1455, supra note 35. 42 Id.
 43 See infra Appendix D: Certain Short Sale-Related Regulatory Actions for a timeline of significant short salerelated events. 

44 Exchange Act Release No. 48709 (Oct. 28, 2003), 68 FR 62972, 62974 (Nov. 6, 2003). 45 Exchange Act Release No. 58592 (Sept. 18, 2008), 73 FR 55169 (Sept. 24, 2008). 46 See, e.g., Avanidhar Subrahmanuam & Sheridan Titman, Feedback from Stock Prices to Cash Flows, 56(6) J. FIN. 

2389-2413 (2001); and Itay Goldstein & Alexander Guembel, Manipulation and the Allocational Role of Prices, 

75(1) REV. ECON. STUDIES 133-64 (2008). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 7 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

impact the issuers’ ability to raise capital through either equity or debt offerings. Thus, short 

selling may increase an issuer’s cost of capital and raise questions about its viability as a going 

concern.47 

During the financial crisis of 2008, the Commission and others were concerned that false 

rumors may have caused sudden and excessive fluctuations in securities prices that might 

threaten fair and orderly markets.48 At that time, the Commission believed false rumors, perhaps 

spread by short sellers, that cause market participants to question an issuer’s underlying financial 

condition can cause selling in those securities, which can in turn lead to short-term price 

distortions in the securities.49 In an effort to prevent “substantial disruption” in the securities 

markets in September 2008, the Commission issued a series of emergency orders related to short 

selling, including temporarily prohibiting short sales of securities of certain financial firms,50 and 

adopting several immediately effective amendments to Regulation SHO.51 

47 See Subrahmanuam & Titman, supra note 46, at 2404-06. Notably, however, there may be alternative mechanism 

for would-be short sellers to have a similar or greater impact on a target issuer. In particular, the equity, options, 

futures, and swaps markets are interconnected, and each of them may be used to effectuate movements in the others. 

For example, in order to take a financial position adverse to a particular issuer, an investor with a negative view 

could take a short position in the equity, but it could also take positions in options or equity futures that would 

increase in value if the stock price declined. Even further, an investor could also buy protection in the credit default 

swap market, if available, which could increase the borrowing costs of the issuer. Because of the interrelationships 

of these products to one-another, we note that efforts to require reporting of just one product, without analogous 

reporting in the other, related products, may not allow the regulators or market participants to have a complete 

understanding of the “negative” interest in an issuer. See infra Section V.C. 48 See Exchange Act Release No. 58166 (July 15, 2008), 73 FR 42379 (July 21, 2008); see also Turmoil in U.S. 

Credit Markets: Examining the Recent Actions of Federal Financial Regulators: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on 

Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, 110th Congress (2008) (statement of Alan Schwartz, President and CEO, Bear 

Stearns). The Division notes that the staff’s analysis of data from the Fall 2008 financial crisis did not find evidence 

that negative returns, on average, were a result of short selling activity. See DANIEL AROMI & CECILIA CAGLIO, SEC 

OFFICE OF ECON. ANALYSIS, ANALYSIS OF SHORT SELLING ACTIVITY DURING THE FIRST WEEKS OF SEPTEMBER 2008 

(Dec. 16, 2008), available at http://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-08-09/s70809-369.pdf. 

49 See Exchange Act Release No. 58166, 73 FR at 42379; Exchange Act Release No. 58592, 73 FR at 55169. 50 See Exchange Act Release No. 58592, 73 FR at 55169; Exchange Act Release No. 58611 (Sept. 21, 2008), 73 FR 

55556 (Sept. 25, 2008); Exchange Act Release No. 58723 (Oct. 2, 2008), 73 FR 58994 (Oct. 8, 2008). 

51 See Exchange Act Release No. 58775 (Oct. 14, 2008), 73 FR 61690 (Oct. 17, 2008) (eliminating the options 

market maker exception); Exchange Act Release No. 58774 (Oct. 14, 2008), 73 FR 61666 (Oct. 17, 2008) (“naked” 

short selling antifraud rule); Exchange Act Release No. 58773 (Oct. 14, 2008), 73 FR 61706 (Oct. 17, 2008) 

(requiring closeout of fails to deliver on T+4). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 8 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The heightened focus on short selling during this period highlighted the lack of timely 

short selling data available to regulators. As discussed in more detail below,52 the Commission 

required certain institutional investors, for a limited time period, to report their short positions. 

Some issuers and retail investors have been particularly vocal in their criticisms of short 

selling.53 In response to its request for comment on this study, the Commission received dozens 

of comment letters from retail investors expressing concerns about the activities of short sellers 

and the consequences of their activities.54 Investors have also expressed their concerns about 

short selling in comments to the Commission on rulemakings,55 and in blogs and other postings 

on the Internet.56 Some issuers and their officers also have spoken out against short selling by 

52 See infra note 108 and accompanying text.
 53 See, e.g., comments received in response to the Commission’s proposed amendments to Regulation SHO, 

Exchange Act Release No. 59748 (Apr. 10, 2009), 74 FR 10842 (Apr. 20, 2009), Comment File Number S7-08-09, 

available at http://sec.gov/comments/s7-08-09/s70809.shtml. 

54 See, e.g., letters from Romeo K. Aboo (May 4, 2011); George W. Cobble (May 6, 2011); Laura H. Hearne (May
 

6, 2011); Mark A. Mac (May 6, 2011); Robert Bourget (May 6, 2011); Tom D. (May 6, 2011); Jack R. McGee (May 

6, 2011); Scott E. Wilbur (May 6, 2011); Blaine L. Parker (May 6, 2011); Suzanne H. Shatto (May 6, 2011); Peter
 

E. Meixler (May 7, 2011); Arnold M. Mass (May 9, 2011); Thomas E. Gish (May 30, 2011); Sally P. Edwards (May 

10, 2011); Robert Grothe (May 10, 2011); George McLeod (May 10, 2011); V. Saunders (May 10, 2011); Jeff 

Dickey (May 12, 2011); Casey E. Olney (May 18, 2011); Gary M. Jacob (May 19, 2011); Lord Michael Phillip 

(May 19, 2011); Bruce Ballaban (May 20, 2011); Nico Roodt (May 28, 2011); Doglas K. Gallagher (May 28, 2011); 

Tom E. Holliston (May 28, 2011); Raymond E. Williams (May 28, 2011); Simon Dinar (May 31, 2011); James 

Ballard (Jun. 6, 2011); L.A. Sumn (Jun. 10, 2011); Lawrence F. Glaser (Jun. 14, 2011); Thomas A. Gorka (Jun. 17, 

2011); John Schatz (Jun. 18, 2011); Michael Taillefer (Jun. 20, 2011); Michael Equitz (Jul. 15, 2011); Joel H. 

Gilbert (Jul. 18, 2011); and IBC (Jul. 18, 2011). 

55 See, e.g., letters submitted in response to Commission’s proposing release on the naked short selling anti-fraud 

rule, cited supra note 51 , including letters from Arik B. Fetscher (Apr. 2, 2008); Fred Adams, Jr., Chairman and 

CEO, Cal-Maine Foods (May 19, 2008); David T. Hirschman, President and CEO, Center for Capital Markets 

Competitiveness, U.S. Chamber of Commerce (May 20, 2008) Wallace E. Boston, Jr., President and CEO, 

American Public Education (May 20, 2008); Kurt N. Schacht, Executive Director, and Linda L. Rittenhouse, Senior 

Policy Analyst, CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity (Jun. 17, 2008); Guillaume Cloutier (July 25, 

2008); Shunliang Wang (July 27, 2008); Scott Bridgford (July 29, 2008); and Keith Kottwitz (Aug. 1, 2008), 

available at http://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-08-08/s70808.shtml. The Commission received more than 700 

comment letters in response to the proposing release on the naked short selling anti-fraud rule. See also comments 

submitted in response to the Commission’s proposing release on Rule 201, in which the Commission sought 

comment on adoption of a short sale-related circuit breaker. See Exchange Act Rel. No. 61595 (Feb. 26, 2010), 75 

FR 11232 (Mar. 10, 2010). The Commission received more than 4,000 comments in response to the release, many of 

which expressed general concerns about the impact of short selling on markets. The comments are available at 

http://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-08-09/s70809.shtml. 56 See, e.g., http://investigatethesec.com. 

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submitting comment letters to the Commission on proposed short-sale related rulemakings57 and 

supporting websites criticizing short selling.58 

C. Short Selling’s Contribution to Market Quality

Short selling as employed by a variety of market participants can contribute substantially 

to overall market quality through its positive effects on price efficiency and market liquidity.59 

As explained in more detail below,60 through price efficiency and market liquidity, short selling 

can also help to promote capital formation. Several commenters noted the role of short selling in 

uncovering fraud, mitigating price bubbles, and otherwise promoting price efficiency.61 The 

Division directs interested readers to Appendix E for a summary of literature supporting the 

concepts below. 

1. Price Efficiency

Price efficiency (also known as market efficiency) refers to how accurately prices reflect 

available information relevant to the value of the asset.62 Put another way, a security price is 

57 See, e.g., letters from Wallace E. Boston, President and CEO, American Public Education (May 20, 2008) (noting 

that “[a]s the CEO of a recently public company, I am acutely aware of the impact that abusive short-selling can 

have on issuers and investors”), submitted in response to the Commission’s Proposing Release on the naked short 

selling anti-fraud rule, Exchange Act Release No. 57581 (Mar. 17, 2008), 73 FR 15376 (Mar. 21, 2008); and John 

W. Kozak, CFO, Park National Bank (May 19, 2009)(stating that large changes in short interest in Park National’s 

stock cause “unnecessary volatility” in its stock price), submitted in response to the Commission’s proposed 

amendments to Regulation SHO Rule 201 that would generally restrict short selling in a declining market. See 

Exchange Act Release No. 59748 (Apr. 10, 2009), 74 FR 10842 (Apr. 20, 2009). 

58 See, e.g., www.deepcapture.com (website initially funded by the CEO of issuer Overstock.com criticizing 

extended delivery failures related to short selling). 

59 See FRANK J. FABOZZI, SHORT SELLING: STRATEGIES, RISKS, AND REWARDS (2004) for an overview on the various 

short selling strategies and the impact of short selling on market quality.; see also Menachem Brenner & Marti G. 

Subrahmanyam, Short Selling (Nov. 24, 2008) (white paper), available at 

http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/salomon/docs/crisis/Short_Selling_white_paper-11-24-08-2.pdf. 60 See infra Section II.C.3. 61 See letters from John Smith (pseudonym) (May 5, 2011); Stuart J. Kaswell, Executive Vice President and General 

Counsel, Managed Funds Association (Jun. 22, 20111) (“MFA”); James Chanos, Chairman, Coalition of Private 

Investment Companies (June 23, 2011) (“CPIC”); Donal Smith, CEO, Data Explorers (Jun. 23, 2011) (“Data 

Explorers”); and Kimberly Unger, Executive Director, Security Traders Association of New York (July 5, 2011) 

(“STANY”).

62 See, e.g., Eugene Fama, Efficient Capital Market II, 46(5) J. FIN. 1575-1617 (1991). 

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deemed to be efficient to the extent that it accurately reflects market participants’ current 

collective opinion as to the security’s fundamental value.63 In other words, an efficient price 

would reflect “somewhere between optimistic and pessimistic” investor opinions.64 Transaction 

prices best reflect information when investors who make investment decisions on the basis of 

estimates of fundamental value (“fundamental investors”) can trade without restrictions or 

costs.65 Financial analysts who engage in fundamental research typically analyze and interpret 

publicly-available company information to determine whether a stock is under- or overvalued.66 

If a stock is undervalued, these fundamental investors purchase the stock, while if it is 

overvalued, they sell it. If investors do not own the stock they want to sell, they can sell it short. 

In this way, fundamental short sellers, such as some mutual funds, hedge funds, and other low 

frequency proprietary traders, can improve price efficiency.67 

Other short sellers, such as arbitrageurs and technical analysts, can also help improve 

price efficiency. Arbitrageurs, such as hedge funds, high frequency traders68 (“HFTs”), and other 

algorithmic traders,69 analyze whether the prices of related assets are in line with the economic 

63 CLIFFORD ASNESS, SHORT SELLING: STRATEGIES, RISKS, AND REWARDS xvi-1 (2004). 64 Id.
 65 See Sanford J. Grossman & Joseph E. Stiglitz, On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets, 

70(2) AM. ECON. REV. 393-408 (1980).
 66 BODIE, KANE & MARCUS, supra note 28, at 363.
 67 See, e.g., Joseph Engelberg, Adam V. Reed & Matthew Ringgenberg, How are Shorts Informed? Short Sellers 

News, and Information Processing (U.N.C., Kenan-Flagler Bus. Sch., Working Paper, Nov. 2010), available at
 

http://public.kenanflagler.unc.edu/faculty/reeda/err.pdf. 68 The Commission noted in the 2010 Concept Release on Equity Market Structure that while the term “high 

frequency trading” does not have a settled definition, five characteristics tend to indicate high frequency trading 

behavior. The identified characteristics are (1) the use of extraordinarily high-speed and sophisticated computer 

programs for generating, routing, and executing orders; (2) use of co-location services and individual data feeds
 

offered by exchanges and others to minimize network and other types of latencies; (3) very short time-frames for 

establishing and liquidating positions; (4) the submission of numerous orders that are cancelled shortly after 

submission; and (5) ending the trading day in as close to a flat position as possible (that is, not carrying significant, 

unhedged positions over-night). See Exchange Act Release No. 61358 (Jan. 14, 2010), 75 FR 3594 (Jan. 21, 2010). 

69 As used in this report, an algorithmic trader is someone who relies on computer programs to decide when, how,
 

and in some cases, whether to trade.
 

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relation between the assets, or have diverged from this relation.70 When they diverge, the 

arbitrageurs buy the relatively undervalued asset and sell the overvalued one, thus promoting 

price convergence and improving relative price efficiency.71 In addition, short sellers who 

conduct technical analysis, such as some hedge funds and HFTs, use trading information and 

other signals to attempt to predict short term price movements by identifying trading patterns, 

arguably promoting price efficiency by minimizing pricing anomalies. 

2. Market Liquidity

“Market liquidity” and “liquidity” refer to the aspect of market quality that enables trades 

in volume to occur at or near the market price.72 A liquid security is one in which buyers and 

sellers can transact in reasonably large sizes with limited impact on price. Market participants 

provide liquidity when they stand ready to transact at market prices. 

Short selling promotes market liquidity through several channels – formally through 

market makers and informally through liquidity-providing short sales by other market 

participants.73 Market makers rely heavily on short selling to supply liquidity when filling 

customer orders for securities not held in inventory, enabling them to maintain two-sided quotes 

70 For example, suppose XYZ owns 80% of ABC. XYZ stock should be priced such that its aggregate market value 

is at least 80% of the aggregate market value of ABC. If both companies have the same number of shares 

outstanding and ABC has a price of $100, then the price of XYZ should be at least $80. If the price of XYZ is $60, 

then XYZ is undervalued relative to ABC. 

71 Following the example supra note 70, if XYZ is $60 and ABC is $100, an arbitrageur will want to buy XYZ, the 

relatively undervalued stock, and short ABC, the relatively overvalued stock. Note that arbitrage trading can include 

any related financial assets, not just stocks. 

72 See LARRY HARRIS, supra note 28, at 394-95; BODIE, KANE & MARCUS, supra note 28, at 306-07. 73A number of commenters noted the role short selling plays in promoting market liquidity. See, e.g., letters from 

John H. Mathisen (May 5, 2011); MFA; Data Explorers; CPIC; Jennifer S. Choi, Associate General Counsel, 

Investment Adviser Association (June 23, 2011) (“IAA”); Karrie McMillan, General Counsel, Investment Company 

Institute, (June 23, 2011) (“ICI”); Jiri Krol, Director, Alternative Investment Management Association (June 23, 

2011) (“AIMA”); and Professor James J. Angel. A letter from STANY states that short selling promotes liquidity by 

reducing bid-ask spreads, noting that “for markets to function most efficiently it is important that they be able to 

quickly incorporate both positive and negative information into share prices. Such participation has been shown to 

increase market liquidity and depth, decrease transaction costs (e.g. smaller bid‐ask spreads), and provide more 

efficient price discovery and decreased occurrences of price bubbles/crashes.” 

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without carrying large positions.74 Short selling by market makers helps offset imbalances in the 

flow of buy and sell orders, when demand would otherwise exceed supply.75 In addition, market 

makers in markets such as equity-based option markets also short sell equity to hedge the risks of 

carrying inventory in their markets. Other short sellers also can supply liquidity to the markets 

through less formal mechanisms, such as trading with limit orders, and thus adding to market 

depth, or by trading in the opposite direction of price moves (i.e., “contrarian strategies”), thus 

offsetting imbalances between buyers and sellers.76 Indeed, as discussed in one staff study, 

evidence indicates that short sellers supply liquidity more often than long sellers when prices are 

rising and demand liquidity less often when prices are falling.77 

3. Capital Formation

Short selling can affect capital formation directly, through its role in public offerings, and 

indirectly, through its role in improving allocative efficiency.78 By promoting price efficiency, 

short selling improves the allocation of capital to its most productive uses, thus facilitating 

capital formation.79 When a stock is overvalued, the expected return implied by its price is too 

low, which implies an artificially low cost of capital.80 For example, if some stocks are 

overvalued when short selling is restricted, too much capital is likely to be allocated to 

74 Discussions with exchanges (Jan. 13, 2011) and equity (Jan. 18, 2011) and options (Jan. 24, 2011) markets 

makers. 

75 See, e.g., IRVING M. POLLACK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECURITIES DEALERS, INC., SHORT SALE REGULATION 

OF NASDAQ SECURITIES 12 (1986).
 76 See Karl B. Diether, Kuan-Hui Lee & Ingrid M. Werner, Short-sale Strategies and Return Predictability, 22 REV.
 

FIN. STUDIES 575-607 (2009). 77 See AROMI & CAGLIO, supra note 48. 78 By “allocative efficiency,” the Division refers to the ability of companies to obtain capital to the point where the 

value to the company of investing the last dollar of capital is equal to the cost of acquiring that last dollar of capital. 

If a company’s stock is overvalued, the marginal cost of acquiring another unit of capital will be too low and the 

company may overinvest. 

79 One can also think of the allocation of capital in the context of investors’ investment decisions. By making better
 

investment decisions, investors are optimally trading off expected risk and return. Better investments offer higher 

returns for a given level of risk. If investors invest in stocks that do not offer the highest return for a given level of
 

risk, then they are not allocating capital to its most productive uses. 

80 STEPHEN ROSS, RANDOLPH WESTERFIELD & JEFFREY JAFFE, CORPORATE FINANCE, Ch. 12 (2008).
 

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companies with the overvalued stocks. If other companies’ stock is fairly valued or even 

undervalued, too little capital is likely to be allocated to these companies.81 The result is that 

overvalued companies may fund less profitable or, worse, unprofitable projects, while profitable 

projects could go unfunded in companies whose stock is fairly valued or undervalued.82 In 

addition, more liquid markets also promote capital formation because investors prefer to invest 

capital in markets where establishing and liquidating positions can be done quickly and at low 

cost.83 

Short selling is prevalent in the immediate aftermarket of IPOs,84 likely because 

participants in offerings make use of short selling to hedge and otherwise manage their risk; 

therefore, one can say that short selling promotes capital formation. The Division understands 

that market participants use short sales to hedge risky positions.85 Market participants with 

hedged positions are willing to accept lower expected returns, which reduces the cost of capital 

for issuers.86 For example, purchasers of convertible bond offerings can manage their risk by 

shorting the underlying stock.87 Reducing the cost of capital for issuers promotes capital 

formation. In discussions with the Division, issuers also explained how short sellers participate 

81 See, e.g., John Lintner, The Aggregation of Investor's Diverse Judgments and Preferences in Purely Competitive 

Security Markets, 3 J. FIN. & QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS 347-400 (1969); Edward Miller, Risk, Uncertainty, and
 

Divergence of Opinion, 32(4) J. FIN. 1151-1168 (1977); José A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, Overconfidence and 

Speculative Bubbles, 111(6) J. POL. ECON. 1183-1219 (Dec. 2003). 82 See Jeffrey Wurgler, Financial Markets and the Allocation of Capital, 58 J. FIN. ECON. 187-214 (2000); Qi Chen, 

Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang, Price Informativeness and Investment Sensitivity to Stock Price, 20(3) REV. FIN. 

STUDIES 619-650 (2007).
 83 See, e.g., Yakov Amihud & Haim Mendelson, Asset Pricing and the Bid-Ask Spread, 17(2) J. FIN. ECON. 223-249
 

(1986); Douglas Diamond & Robert Verrecchia, Disclosure, Liquidity, and the Cost of Capital, 46(4) J. FIN. 1325­

1355 (1991). 

84 Amy K. Edwards & Kathleen Weiss Hanley, Short Selling in Initial Public Offerings, 98 J. FIN. ECON. 21-39 

(2010). Edwards currently serves as a Commission staff member in the Division. 85 See letters from SIFMA; MFA; CPIC; FIF; IAA; ICI; Data Explorers; AIMA; and STANY.
 86 See, e.g., Stephen J. Brown, Bruce D. Grundy, Craig M. Lewis & Patrick Verwijmeren, Convertibles and Hedge 

Funds as Distributors of Equity Exposure, 25 (10) REV. FIN. STUD. 3077-3112 (Oct. 2012). 87 Id.
 

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directly in capital formation because the covering of their short positions makes them natural 

purchasers of stock in follow-on offerings, subject to applicable law.88 

4. Significance of Short Selling

The potential benefits of short selling noted above89 are not trivial, given the prevalence 

of short selling as a proportion of all sales. Using 2005 data, academic studies have found short 

selling as a proportion of volume ranges from 20% to 35%90 while more recent data analysis by 

Division staff has found short selling at nearly 50% of volume.91 Figure F.1 in Appendix F shows 

that the level of short selling as a percentage of trading volume has been growing over the last 

five years. According to a study published by Commission staff, short selling is even high early 

in the life of a stock, starting at 7% of the offered shares, on average, on the first day an IPO 

trades.92 Despite the recent increase in short selling as a percentage of volume, Figure F.2 in 

Appendix F shows that short interest appears to have been fairly steady since the end of 2008. 

The combination of these results suggests that positions that are closed within the trading day 

drive the increase in short selling. Specifically, market makers and HFTs typically establish and 

close short positions within the day. To put these numbers in perspective, only a fraction of 

shares outstanding trade in a given day, so the short interest is typically much higher than daily 

88 Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). Rule 105 of Regulation M prohibits those 

who short in the days preceding certain offerings from participating in the offering, with limited exceptions. See 17 

CFR 242.105. 

89 See supra Sections II.C.1 – II.C.3. 90 See, e.g., Diether, Lee & Werner, supra note 76; SEC OFFICE OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF 

THE SHORT SALE PRICE RESTRICTIONS UNDER THE REGULATION SHO PILOT (Feb. 6, 2007), available at 

http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2007/regshopilot020607.pdf

91 See supra note 25. 92 See Edwards & Hanley, supra note 84. 

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short selling volume. In November 2013, the short interest was an average of 8.13 times the daily 

short selling volume.93 

Short selling utilizes the securities lending market, which has a large supply of shares 

available for loan. Figure F.3 shows that while the value on loan has recently reached $1⁄2 trillion, 

between 5% and 12% of shares available for stock loans are on loan at any point in time. 94 

According to an academic paper, only 9% of stocks in its sample a had a limited supply of shares 

on the securities lending market, as identified by high lending fees.95 

III. Short Sale Disclosure

A considerable amount of short sale data is currently available to investors, issuers, 

regulators, and other market participants on both a free and paid basis.96 Division staff assessed 

the feasibility of the disclosure regimes specified in Section 417(b)(2) as well as the benefits and 

costs of the data that would be provided under them against the baseline of both the short 

position and transaction data currently available to regulators and the investing public as well as 

the data that would be available to regulators if the Commission approves a CAT NMS Plan 97 

and from other recently adopted rules. In addition, the Division examined short sale position and 

transaction disclosure regimes in foreign jurisdictions to help assess the specified regimes and 

inform possible approaches to key definitions and policy choices for the purposes of this study. 

93 Short interest is published by listing exchanges, see supra note 99 and accompanying text. Short sale volume is
 

published by the SROs. See supra note 116 and accompanying text. 94 See infra Figure F.3, showing the value of shares actually loaned by quarter and the percentage of available shares
 

on loan for the 1999-2013 period. See the Risk Management Association web site, http://www.rmahq.org/securitieslending/quarterly-aggregate-composite, for more information.

95 Gene D’Avolio, The Market for Borrowing Stock, 66 J. FIN. ECON.271-306 (2002).
 96 See letters from Ira D. Hammerman, Senior Managing Director and General Counsel, SIFMA (Jun. 23, 2011); 

CPIC. Many of these data sets can be found at hyperlinks available at
 

http://www.sec.gov/answers/shortsalevolume.htm. 97 See supra note 3.
 

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A. Currently and Previously Available Data

1. Bi‐Monthly Short Interest

Short interest reporting is a form of aggregated position reporting. FINRA collects short 

interest in individual securities98 and the exchanges that list stocks publish the data twice a 

month.99 FINRA computes short interest using information it receives from its broker-dealer 

members pursuant to FINRA Rule 4560 reflecting all trades cleared through clearing brokerdealers.100 FINRA Rule 4560 requires generally that broker-dealers that are FINRA members 

report “short positions” in customer and proprietary firm accounts in all equity securities twice a 

month through FINRA’s web-based Regulation Filing Applications (RFA) system.101 FINRA 

defines “short positions” for this purpose simply as those resulting from “short sales” as defined 

in Rule 200(a) of Regulation SHO under the Exchange Act.102 Member firms must report their 

short positions to FINRA regardless of position size.103 In a process that takes approximately 

eleven days after the settlement date used for calculations, or two weeks after the last trading 

98 See FINRA Rule 4560; NASD Notice to Members 07-24 (May 2007). The reporting requirement was initially 

adopted in 1985 by the NASD (now known as FINRA) to collect information for a study it was conducting on short 

sale activity in the over-the-counter market to assess the possible need for additional regulation of short sale 

practices. See Exchange Act Release No. 22731 (Dec. 19, 1985), 51 FR 462 (Jan. 6, 1986). 99 See, e.g., http://www.nyxdata.com/Data-Products/NYSE-Group-Short-Interest; 

http://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/short-interest.aspx. Neither FINRA nor BATS, however, publish the short interest 

data for securities listed on BATS. 

100 Short interest for a listed security at any date reported by FINRA is the aggregate of the short positions of all 

clearing brokers in that security on that date. Discussion with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011). 

101 FINRA Rule 4560 excludes short sales in “restricted equity securities,” as defined in Securities Act Rule 144, 

from the reporting requirement. 

102 See FINRA Rule 4560(b)(1).
 103 See FINRA Market Regulation Department, General Instructions for Short Interest Reporting to FINRA Member 

Firms (Dec. 18, 2008) available at 

http://www.finra.org/Industry/Compliance/RegulatoryFilings/ShortInterestReporting/P037072. 

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date for the captured short positions,104 FINRA validates and aggregates the information by 

security and, along with NYSE and NASDAQ, releases it to the public.105 

Investors and issuers appear to be aware of short interest data, which is available from 

data vendors, exchanges, and even on web sites such as financial information websites.106 Issuers 

report that they monitor short interest data in their stock to gauge investor sentiment, generally 

obtaining the data from the exchanges more so than from data vendors.107 

2. Exchange Act Rule 10a3-T and Exchange Act Form SH 

For a ten-month period in 2008 and 2009, the Commission required certain institutional 

investment managers to submit confidential weekly reports of their short positions in Section 

13(f) securities, other than options, on Exchange Act Form SH.108 De minimis short positions of 

less than 0.25% of the class of shares with a fair market value of less than $1 million were not 

required to be reported.109 The investment manager was required to report short positions to the 

Commission on Form SH on a nonpublic basis on the last business day of each calendar week 

immediately following any calendar week in which it effected short sales,110 a more frequent 

disclosure interval than the quarterly public reporting of long positions required on Exchange 

104 See 2011 Short Interest Reporting Due Dates at 

http://www.finra.org/Industry/Compliance/RegulatoryFilings/P117123. 105 See supra note 99 and accompanying text.
 106 Discussions with long investors and retail investors (Jan. 31, 2011) and data vendors (Feb. 4, 2011).
 107 See letter from NIRI. Data vendors likewise report little demand for short sale data products designed specifically 

for issuers.
 108 With respect to each applicable section 13(f) security, the Form SH filing was required to identify the issuer and 

CUSIP number of the relevant security and reflect the manager’s start of day short position, the number and value of 

securities sold short during the day, the end of day short position, the largest intraday short position, and the time of
 

the largest intraday short position. The reporting requirement was implemented via a series of emergency orders 

followed by an interim final temporary rule, Rule 10a3-T. Exchange Act Release No. 58591 (Sept.18, 2008), 73 FR
 

55175 (Sept. 24, 2008); Exchange Act Release No. 58591A (Sept. 21, 2008), 73 FR 58987 (Sept. 25, 2008);
 

Exchange Act Release No. 58724 (Oct. 2, 2008), 73 FR 58987 (Oct. 8, 2008); Exchange Act Release No. 58785
 

(Oct. 15, 2008), 73 FR 61678 (Oct. 17, 2008). 

109 See Exchange Act Release No. 58591, 73 FR at 55175. 110 See Exchange Act Release No. 58785, 73 FR at 61678. 

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Act Form 13F.111 

Following the financial crisis and the expiration of Rule 10a3-T on August 1, 2009, the 

Commission and certain SROs thereafter commenced several initiatives to increase the public 

availability of short sale-related information,112 with a view to improving the information 

available to regulators, investors, analysts, academics, and the public.113 These post-crisis 

initiatives, which remain in effect, include publication of data regarding fails to deliver by the 

Commission on its website on a half-month delay114 and the publication by SROs of two data sets 

on short selling activity, which are discussed below.115 

3. Short Selling Volume and Transactions

Since 2009, many SROs have been publishing two short selling data sets, including same 

day publication of daily aggregated short sale volume in individual securities116 and publication 

of short sale transaction information on no more than a two-month delay.117 Market participants, 

including issuers and investors, do not appear to widely monitor or use this data, and data 

111 Id. 112 See Press Release, Sec. & Exch. Comm’n (July 27, 2009), available at 

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-172.htm.

113 Id. 114 The fails to deliver data is daily aggregate data provided twice per month for all equity securities, regardless of 

the fails level, at the following link: http://www.sec.gov/foia/docs/failsdata.htm. 115 See infra Section III.A.3. 116 For hyperlinks to the websites where SROs publish this data, see 

http://www.sec.gov/answers/shortsalevolume.htm, supra note 25. See, e.g., FINRA’s Daily Short Sale Volume 

Files, which provide aggregated volume by security on all short sale trades executed and reported to a FINRA 

reporting facility during normal market hours. See FINRA Information Notice, Publication of Daily and Monthly 

Short Sale Reports on the FINRA Web Site (Sept. 29, 2009), available at 

http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@reg/@notice/documents/notices/p120044.pdf. 117 See, e.g., FINRA’s Monthly Short Sale Transaction Files, which provide detailed trade activity of all short sale 

trades reported to a consolidated tape. See FINRA Information Notice, Publication of Daily and Monthly Short Sale 

Reports on the FINRA Web Site, supra note 116. Links to all SRO data are collected at 

http://www.sec.gov/answers/shortsalevolume.htm. Additional transaction data has been available at various times, 

including transaction data from the Regulation SHO Pilot, which was discontinued by most exchanges in July 2007 

when the uptick rule was removed (See Exchange Act Release No. 55970 (Jun. 28, 2007), 72 FR 36348 (July 3, 

2007), available at http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2007/34-55970.pdf). The Pilot data comprised short selling 

records available from each of nine markets: American Stock Exchange, Archipelago Exchange, Boston Stock 

Exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange, NASD, Nasdaq Stock Market, New York Stock Exchange, National Stock 

Exchange, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. See SEC Division of Trading and Markets, Reg SHO Pilot Data 

FAQ, available at http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/shopilot.htm#pilotfaq. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 19 
 

 

 

 

 

vendors informed the Division that they had not created products utilizing this data.118 The 

Division is unaware of the transaction-level data being widely used by any group other than 

academics. 

These data sets are compiled using information contained in marks for orders that execute 

and information from FINRA’s Trade Reporting Facility (“TRF”) and Alternative Display 

Facility (“ADF”) 119 (the TRF and ADF are together referred to herein as “FINRA’s Reporting 

Facilities”). Rule 3b-16(c) of the Exchange Act defines an order as a “firm indication of a 

willingness to buy or sell a security.”120 A transaction sometimes consists of the execution of an 

order to buy combined with a corresponding order to sell. A transaction can also consist of 

multiple buy or sell orders.121 A market maker can be the buyer or seller when there are no public 

buy or sell orders available to trade with an order at a particular price, resulting in an execution 

without an order (on the market maker’s side).122 

Existing regimes for short sale order marking and trade reporting provide an 

infrastructure that may facilitate Transaction Marking. The TRF, ADF, Rule 200(g) of 

Regulation SHO under the Exchange Act123, and FINRA’s Order Audit Trail System (“OATS”)124 

all currently provide for order marking and trade reporting, although these marks do not include 

118 Discussions with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011) and data vendors (Feb. 4, 2011). 119 Each TRF provides FINRA members with a mechanism for the public reporting of transactions effected 

otherwise than on an exchange. See FINRA, Market Transparency, Trade Reporting Facility, available at 

http://www.finra.org/Industry/Compliance/MarketTransparency/TRF/. The ADF is an SRO display only facility that 

is operated by FINRA. It provides members with a facility for the public display of quotations, the reporting of
 

trades, and the comparison of trades. See FINRA, Market Transparency, Alternative Display Facility, available at
 

http://www.finra.org/Industry/Compliance/MarketTransparency/ADF/.
 120 Exchange Act Release No. 40760, 63 FR at 70918.
 121 For example, a 500 share transaction could be the execution of one 500 share buy order, a 200 share sell order,
 

and a 300 share sell order. 

122 For example, a 500 share transaction could be the execution of one 500 share buy order against a market maker 

selling.

123 17 CFR 242.200(g). 124 See FINRA Rules 7410 – 7470; see also “Order Audit Trail System (OATStm)” at 

http://www.finra.org/Industry/Compliance/MarketTransparency/OATS/.http://www.finra.org/Industry/Compliance/
 

MarketTransparency/OATS/. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 20 
 

 

 

the “market maker short” and “buy-to-cover” marks specified in Section 417(a)(2)(B) of the 

Dodd-Frank Act. 

Rule 200(g) of Regulation SHO requires that orders to sell be marked “long,” “short,” or 

“short exempt.”125 Under Regulation SHO, a sell order may be marked "long" only if the seller is 

deemed to own the security being sold126 and the security either is in the physical possession or 

control of the broker-dealer, or it is reasonably expected that the security will be in the physical 

possession or control of the broker or dealer no later than settlement date.127 A short sale order 

may be marked “short exempt” only under specified circumstances.128 OATS rules impose 

obligations on FINRA members to record the designation of orders they transmit or execute as 

“buy” or “sell” and “short” or “short exempt.”129 FINRA’s Reporting Facilities’ rules require that 

firms report transactions consistent with the marking of the order for purposes of Regulation 

SHO.130 The FINRA designations for “short” or “short exempt” generally follows the 

requirements of Regulation SHO.131 

One of the purposes of these order marks is regulatory; they are used to monitor 

compliance with other requirements applicable to short sales under Regulation SHO, 132 including 

125 See 17 CFR 242.200(g). 126 Rule 200(a)-(f) of Regulation SHO specifies when a seller is “deemed to own” a security. See 17 CFR 

242.200(a)-(f).

127 See 17 CFR 242.200(g). 128 Specifically, a short sale order may be marked “short exempt” only if the provisions of Rule 201(c) or (d) are 

met. See 17 CFR 242.200(g)(2). Rule 201(c) and (d) set forth specific circumstances where a short sale order may be 

marked “short exempt” such that it may be executed or displayed by a trading center without regard to the price test
 

restriction of Rule 201. See 17 CFR 242.201(b)(1)(iii)(B), 242.201(c), and 242.201(d). 129 See FINRA Rule 7440. 130 See FINRA Regulatory Notice 10-48, Amendments to FINRA Trade Reporting and OATS Rules to Reinstitute 

Short Sale Exempt Marking and to Require Price and Short Exempt Identifier on Route Reports (Oct. 2010). 131 See id.
 132 See Exchange Act Release No. 50103, 69 FR at 48012; Exchange Act Release No. 61595 (Feb. 26, 2010), 75 FR 

11232, 11275-11276 (Mar. 10, 2010); SEC Division of Markets: Market Regulation, Responses to Frequently Asked
 

Questions Concerning Regulation SHO (“Regulation SHO FAQ”), Q&A 2.2, available at
 

http://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/mrfaqregsho1204.htm.
 

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the “locate,”133 “close-out,”134 and circuit-breaker price test135 requirements. However, marking 

short sales can be fairly complex.136 When short order marks are analyzed for the purpose of 

calculating the number or volume of short sales, overestimation may result because the abovementioned rules137 and related Commission staff guidance138 currently encourage erring on the 

side of marking short. Therefore, the volume and transaction data that became available postcrisis, which derive, in part, from these order marks, may overestimate the volume of 

transactions that represent sellers establishing or increasing a short position. 

4. Securities Lending

Securities lending data provides information on stock loan volume, lending costs, and the 

percentage of available stock out on loan, which some market commentators have used as 

133 See 17 CFR 242.203(b)(1). 134 See 17 CFR 242.203(b)(3) and 242.204. 135 See 17 CFR 242.201. 136 See, e.g., Regulation SHO FAQ, supra note 132, Q&As 2.1 – 2.5 (addressing frequently asked questions 

regarding order marking), available at http://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/mrfaqregsho1204.htm. 137 See.e.g., Exchange Act Release No. 50103, 69 FR at 48012 As noted supra in notes 126-127 and accompanying 

text, to mark a sell order “long”, the selling party must (i) be “deemed to own” the security being sold to avoid the 

definition of “short sale” in Rule 200(a), and (ii) satisfy the specific requirements relating to possession or control 

laid out in Rule 200(g). Rule 200(a)-(f) of Regulation SHO specifies a limited range of instances where a party may 

actually be “deemed to own” the security being sold, and this limited range therefore makes it more difficult to 

determine that a sale does not fall within the definition of “short sale” set forth in Rule 200(a). Also, there may be 

instances where a seller can be “deemed to own” the security being sold but physical possession or control of the 

security, or a reasonable expectation thereof in time for settlement, is not present. Restricted securities under Rule 

144 of the Exchange Act are a common example in that a seller is “deemed to own” such securities under Rule 

200(a), but because of the Rule 144 transfer restrictions the seller cannot meet the possession or control 

requirements of Rule 200(g). The sale of a Rule 144 restricted security is therefore required to be marked “short” 

even though the “deemed to own” test has been satisfied and the sale does not otherwise fall under Rule 200(a)’s 

definition of a short sale. See Exchange Act Release No. 50103, 69 FR at 48012; see also letters from AIMA and 

SIFMA. 

138 In particular, some sales may be executed when the seller has a net long position even though the sell order was 

marked short. See, e.g., Regulation SHO FAQ, supra note 132, Q&A2.5, which addresses order marking where an 

investor is net long 1,000 shares and simultaneously enters multiple orders to sell 1,000 shares owned. FAQ 2.5 

advises that only one of these orders can be marked as a long sale; the rest must be marked short. In this situation, 

one of the orders marked short might execute first and the remaining pending sell orders, including the long order 

might be canceled such that the resulting transaction would be recorded as a short sale, even though it was actually 

long and did not result in a short position. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 22 
 

	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

measures of short selling.139 The securities lending industry appears to use securities lending data 

widely, though it is generally available only by subscription. 

Securities lending may be correlated with short selling but is not a perfect measure of 

short selling. Securities lending may be used for purposes other than short sales such as to cover 

trade fails, short selling that is covered within the trading day does not require any loans, and 

vendors that sell lending data do not have complete information, including less than 100% of the 

negotiated loans and no information on borrowing from margin accounts.140 

B. Potentially Forthcoming Short Sale Data

The Division considered whether the baseline should include other data that may be 

available in the future.141 On July 27, 2011, the Commission adopted Exchange Act Rule 13h-1 

(“Large Trader”) 142 and on July 18, 2012, the Commission adopted Exchange Act Rule 613 

(“CAT Rule”).143 As discussed further below, these rules may change short selling information 

available to regulators. In addition, Sections 929X(a)144 and 984(b)145 of the Dodd-Frank Act also 

address issues related to short selling and could at some point impact the available information 

related to short selling. 

139 Several commercial entities sell data on securities lending to clients. See, e.g., letter from Data Explorers. As 

some commenters have noted, stock lending facilitates short selling (see, e.g., Speech by Chester Spatt, former Chief 

Economist of the SEC, available at http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2007/spch042007css.htm). The information 

sold by vendors may include volume of loans, lending costs, and the percentage of available stock out on loan. This 

data offers indirect evidence of short selling, and some research has used stock lending data as a proxy for actual 

short sales. See, e.g., Oliver Wyman, Alternative Investment Management Association, The Effects of Short Selling 

Public Disclosure of Individual Positions on Equity Markets (Feb. 2011), available at 

https://www.managedfunds.org/industry-resources/industry-research/the-effects-of-short-selling-public-disclosureof-individual-positions-on-equity-markets/. 

140 Discussion with data vendors (Feb. 4, 2011). 141 A number of commenters noted the importance of considering the benefits and costs of the contemplated regimes 

in Section 417 alongside other potential initiatives. See letters from IAA; SIFMA; FIF; and STANY. 142 See Exchange Act Release No. 64976 (Jul. 27, 2011), 76 FR 46960 (Aug. 3, 2011). 143 See supra note 97. 144 Codified as amended at 15 U.S.C. 78m(f)(2) (2012). 145 Codified as amended at 15 U.S.C. 78j (2012). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 23 
	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT)

Under the CAT Rule and various Commission orders, SROs must submit an NMS Plan to 

create, implement, and maintain a consolidated audit trail of order information on or before 

September 30, 2014.146 If the Commission approves the NMS Plan submitted by the SROs, the 

CAT will allow the Commission and the SROs to have access to information on all orders to 

trade NMS securities.147 In particular, if the NMS Plan is approved, the CAT data will include 

information on the short sale order marks, the customer identity, and an open/close indicator.148 

Rule 613 requires that the NMS plan provide that such information be reported by broker-dealers 

and exchanges no later than 8:00am on the trading day following the day such information was 

recorded.149 With access to this information, the Commission and the SROs may be able to run 

processes when needed to track short selling and buy-to-cover activity and to identify the activity 

of large short sellers.150 While improving regulators’ access to short selling information, the CAT 

might not improve access to short selling information for non-regulators.151 

146 See Rule 613(a). The due date for filing of the NMS Plan, initially April 28, 2013, was extended by the 

Commission pursuant to requests by the SROs to September 30, 2014. See Exchange Act Release No. 71018 (Dec. 

6, 2013), 78 FR 75669 (Dec. 12, 2013). Under Rule 613(a)(1), the SROs were required to file the NMS Plan no later 

than 270 days from the date of publication of the Rule 613 Adopting Release in the Federal Register. The Rule 613 

Adopting Release was published in the Federal Register on August 1, 2012. See Exchange Act Release No. 67457 

(Jul. 18, 2012), 77 FR 45722 (Aug. 1, 2012). Thus, the NMS plan was originally due no later than April 28, 2013. 

On March 7, 2013, the Commission granted a request from the SROs for an extension of this deadline until 

December 6, 2013. See Exchange Act Release No. 69060 (Mar. 7, 2013), 78 FR 15771 (Mar. 12, 2013). On 

November 8, 2013, the SROs filed an application for further extension of the deadline to September 30, 2014, which 

was granted by the Commission on December 6, 2013. See 78 FR at 75669. 147 See Rule 613(e)(2), which provides for regulatory access to CAT. 148 See Rule 613(c)(7)(i)(A) and (F) and Rule 613(j)(7), which require reporting of a customer identifier and material 

terms of the order, including whether a sell order is a short sale and an open/close indicator in CAT. The Division 

expects that the open/close indicator will provide information on whether the transaction is to open or close a 

position. Consequently, an order to buy that is closing a position would be a buy-to-cover. 

149 See Rule 613(c)(3). Rule 613(c)(3) requires the CAT NMS Plan to provide that certain key data must be recorded 

contemporaneously with the reportable event (i.e., origination or receipt, modification, cancellation, routing, 

execution, and receipt of a routed order) and reported by 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time on the following trading day. 150 See Exchange Act Release No. 67457, 77 FR at 45730; see also Exchange Act Release No. 62174 (May 26, 

2010), 75 FR 32556, 32575 (June 8, 2010)(“an open/close indicator could be used to indicate when a buy order in a 

stock is a buy to cover on a short sale.”) Rule 613 does not require the CAT NMS Plan to provide that orders be 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 24 
	 	 	

	 	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Large Trader Rule

The Large Trader Rule requires those who meet the definition of “large traders” to 

register with the Commission to get a large trader identification number and comply with the 

requirements of Rule 13h-1.152 This number will allow the activities of large traders to be 

aggregated across multiple broker-dealers and will provide the Commission with a faster way to 

acquire information about the activities of large traders, including their short selling, than exists 

today. The Large Trader Rule will not make any new data public.153 The Rule became effective 

on October 3, 2011. The compliance date for large traders to identify themselves to the 

Commission pursuant to Rule 13h-1(b) was December 1, 2011. The compliance date for brokerdealers to maintain records, report, and monitor large trader activity was November 1, 2013, 

although certain broker-dealers have been exempted from compliance until November 1, 2015.154 

3. Other Potentially Available Data

Potential future sources of data include data resulting from implementation of regulations 

required under Sections 929X(a) and 984(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act.155 Section 984(b) of the 

Dodd-Frank Act provides that “not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the 

Commission shall promulgate rules that are designed to increase the transparency of information 

directly marked as a buy-to-cover, but it does require the CAT NMS Plan to provide for an open/close indicator that 

would indicate whether a buy order is closing a position. 

151 See Exchange Act Release No. 67457, 77 FR at 45780-45781 (“The Commission requested comment [in the 

proposal] on whether it should allow the consolidated audit trail data to be made available to third parties, such as 

for academic research... However, because the creation and implementation of the consolidated audit trail is in the 

formative stage, and in light of commenters’ concerns about the privacy and security of the information, the 

Commission believes it is premature to require that the NMS plan require the provision of data to third parties.”) 152 See supra note 142 and accompanying text. 153 Id. 154 See Exchange Act Release No. 70150 (Aug. 8, 2013), 78 FR 49556 (Aug. 14, 2013). The Commission extended 

the compliance date to November 1, 2015 for broker-dealers that are not (1) clearing broker-dealers for large traders, 

with respect to (a) proprietary transactions by a large trader broker-dealer, (b) transactions effected pursuant to a 

“sponsored access arrangement,” and (c) transactions effected pursuant to a “direct market access arrangement;” and 

(2) broker-dealers that carry an account for a large trader, with respect to transactions other than those set forth 

above, and for transaction data other than the execution time. 155 Pub. L. No. 111-203 (July 21, 2010). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 25 
	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

available to brokers, dealers, and investors, with respect to the loan or borrowing of securities.”156 

Section 929X(a) of the Dodd-Frank Act provides that “[t]he Commission shall prescribe rules 

providing for the public disclosure of the name of the issuer and the title, class, CUSIP number, 

aggregate amount of the number of short sales of each security, and any additional information 

determined by the Commission following the end of the reporting period. At a minimum, such 

public disclosure shall occur every month.”157 The Commission has not yet taken action pursuant 

to these provisions. The analysis, therefore, does not include these potential data in the baseline 

against which to compare the benefits and costs that are described in this study. 

C. Foreign Short Sale Data

Several foreign jurisdictions recently adopted, or are considering adopting, short position 

reporting regimes.158 These existing and proposed regimes are instructive because they embody a 

variety of available policy choices, including reporting thresholds, disclosure frequencies and 

deadlines, and whether positions are for public or private dissemination.159 

Commenters recognized the relevance of these regimes in general,160 with some 

commenters preferring certain foreign regulatory approaches to short selling over others.161 Some 

commenters advocated a consistent international approach for the sake of efficiency,162 while 

156 Codified as amended at 15 U.S.C. 78j (2012). 157 See Pub. L. No. 111-203, Section 929X(a), codified as amended at 15 U.S.C. 78m(f)(2).
 158 See infra Appendix C: Related Regulations in Certain Foreign Jurisdictions for a comparison of the disclosure 

regimes of selected major jurisdictions. 

159 At least one foreign jurisdiction temporarily banned all short selling. The Greek ban on shorting non-bank stock 

began in August 2011 and continued through January 2013. See Press Release, Hellenic Republic Capital Market 

Commission (Jan. 28, 2013), available at 

http://www.hcmc.gr/photos/kefalaiagora/files/Short%20Selling%20Prohibition_28%201%202013.pdf. 160 See letter from Professor James J. Angel. 161 See letter from CPIC. 162 See letters from ICI; and AIMA. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 26 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

others cautioned against drawing conclusions from rules that apply only to a narrow range of 

stocks for a limited period of time.163 

Some foreign jurisdictions have reporting thresholds. Australia requires reporting short 

positions exceeding $100,000 and 0.01% of the share class.164 Japan requires reporting of short 

positions exceeding 0.20% of stock issued and outstanding.165 In 2012, the European Parliament 

and the Council of the European Union adopted regulations on short selling (the “SSR”) that 

standardized the reporting threshold for all E.U. member states.166 Under the SSR, the trading 

entity reports to the regulator when their short position reaches the initial threshold of 0.2% of 

the share capital of the company, and in 0.1% up and down increments thereafter.167 

In Australia, the E.U., Japan, and Hong Kong, reported positions are subject to public 

disclosure (either in individual form or aggregated).168 In several jurisdictions the public 

disclosure is subject to a separate ownership threshold that is higher than the threshold for 

disclosure to the regulator.169 For example, in the E.U. short sellers must report positions of 0.2% 

and above to regulators,170 but must report short positions to the public only when their short 

163 See letter from MFA. 164 See Australian Securities and Investment Commission, Regulatory Guide 196, RG 196.127 (Apr. 2011). 165 See Financial Services Agency (Japan), Publication of a Draft Comprehensive Review of the Short Selling
 

Regulation (April 1, 2013) (“FSA Japan Proposed Short Sale Disclosure”), available at
 

http://www.fsa.go.jp/en/news/2013/20130401-1.html; Financial Services Agency (Japan); FSA Extends Temporary 

Measures to Restrict Short Selling and Facilitate Share Repurchase by Publicly Listed Companies (April 23, 2013) 

(“FSA Japan Short Sale Disclosure Threshold”), available at http://www.fsa.go.jp/en/news/2013/20130423.html. 166 See European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, Regulation No. 236/2012 (Mar. 24, 2012), 

available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:086:0001:0024:en:PDF. The SSR 

was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on March 14, 2012 and became 

effective on Nov. 1, 2012. 

167 Id., Article 5(2). 168See Regulatory Guide 196 (Australia), supra note 164, RG 196.143; EU Regulation No. 236/2012, supra note 

166, at Article 6(2),; FSA Japan Proposed Short Sale Disclosure and FSA Japan Short Sale Disclosure Threshold,
 

supra note 165, at 1; Hong Kong Securities and Futures Ordinance, Ch. 571AJ, Securities and Futures (Short 

Position Reporting) Rules (effective June 18, 2012), available at http://www.legislation.gov.hk/eng/home.htm.

169 See infra Appendix C: Related Regulations in Certain Foreign Jurisdictions for a summary of reporting 

requirements. 

170 E.U. Regulation No. 236/2012, supra note 160, Article 5(2).
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 27 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

position reaches the threshold of 0.5%, and in 0.1% up and down increments thereafter.171 

Public disclosure also is often subject to a delay from reporting to dissemination.172 

None of the foreign jurisdictions reviewed by the Division requires short position reporting in 

real time, instead requiring reports with frequencies ranging from daily173 to weekly.174 Reporting 

times vary between one and three trading days following the date of the position creation or 

calculation.175 In the E.U., trading entities must submit their data to the regulator by 3:30 pm on 

the following trading day.176 Trading entities accomplish public disclosure via a central website 

operated or supervised by the relevant competent authority.177 

Several of the foreign jurisdictions reviewed by the Division have short sale order 

marking and short sale transaction or volume reporting requirements.178 For example, Canada179 , 

Hong Kong180, and Singapore181 have short sale order marking requirements. In Australia, the 

171 E.U. Regulation No. 236/2012, supra note 166, Article 6(2). 172 See, e.g., Regulatory Guide 196 (Australia), supra note 164, RG 196.133, RG 196.143. 173 See EU Regulation No. 236/2012, supra note 166, Article 9(2).
 174See Hong Kong Securities and Futures Ordinance, Ch. 571AJ, Securities and Futures (Short Position Reporting)
 

Rules, supra note 168. 175 See infra Appendix C: Related Regulations in Certain Foreign Jurisdictions.
 176 E.U. Regulation No. 236/2012, supra note 166, Article 9(2).
 177 Id., Article 9(4). 178 See infra Appendix C: Related Regulations in Certain Foreign Jurisdictions for summary of marking and
 

reporting requirements. 

179 See generally IIROC, Provisions Respecting Regulation of Short Sales and Failed Trades, No. 11-0075 (Feb. 25, 

2011), available at 

http://docs.iiroc.ca/DisplayDocument.aspx?DocumentID=14604580516B48F88A0BCFA629781242&Language=en
 

; Ontario Secs. Comm., National Instrument 23-101 - Trading Rules, Part 11.2, available at 

http://www.iiroc.ca/industry/Documents/NationalInstrument23101_en.pdf; IIROC, Rules Notice Request for 

Comments, Proposed Guidance on 'Short Sale' and 'Short-Marking Exempt' Order Designations, No. 11-0076 (Feb. 

25, 2011), available at
 

http://docs.iiroc.ca/DisplayDocument.aspx?DocumentID=09B964F0FD814123AD04640B2F04A012&Language=e
 

n. 

180 See Hong Kong Exchange Rules, Eleventh Schedule, Rule 5; Hong Kong Securities and Futures Ordinance, Part 

VII Restriction on Short Selling, etc.: Sections 170 (Short Selling Restricted), 171 (Requirements to confirm short 

selling order), 172 (Requirements to Disclose Short Sales), and Section 397: Rules by Commission of the Securities 

and Futures Ordinance, supra note 169; see also Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, Consultation 

Conclusions on Increasing Short Position Transparency (Mar. 2, 2010) (“Hong Kong Consultation Conclusions”), 

item 10, available at 

http://www.sfc.hk/web/doc/EN/speeches/consult/consultationconclusion2march2010english.pdf. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 28 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

Australian Securities and Investments Commission publishes transaction volume by security on 

its website on the day following its receipt of a short position report.182 In Hong Kong183 and 

Poland,184 the exchanges publish short sale volume information. 

D. Interest in Additional Short Sale Data

The financial crisis highlighted the fact that regulators are often unable to identify short 

sellers and short position holders in a timely manner. As noted in the CAT adopting release, the 

audit trail data currently available to regulators, which includes short sale marks, suffers from 

deficiencies in accuracy, completeness, accessibility, and timeliness.185 In particular, an 

investigation that involves examining potential manipulation, such as an investigation of the 

activity of particular short sellers, could require the gathering of data through the audit trail 

systems of multiple SROs, the electronic bluesheet system, Exchange Act Rule 17a-25, and 

equity cleared reports.186 Although the SROs began disclosing short selling volume and 

transaction data in 2009, the Commission and other regulators lack direct access to the data 

necessary to quickly identify short sellers and short position holders. However, pursuant to any 

181 See Monetary Authority of Singapore, Guidelines on Short Selling Disclosure, SFA 15-G02 (Jan. 9, 2013) 

available at 

http://www.mas.gov.sg/~/media/MAS/Regulations%20and%20Financial%20Stability/Regulations%20Guidance%2 

0and%20Licensing/Securities%20Futures%20and%20Fund%20Management/MIS%20Regs/SFA%20Guidelines%2 

0on%20Short%20Selling%20Disclosure%20%209%20January%202013.pdf; see also Singapore Exchange Limited, 

Public Consultation, Implementation of Marking of Sell Orders (July 23, 2010), available at 

http://www.thenextview.com/sgxnews/20100723_124506_S68_204F19D16A518F56482577690019EA91.2.pdf. 182 See Regulatory Guide 196 (Australia), supra note 164, RG 196.143 “(total short positions held in a product on 

day T will be published on T+4”); Corporations Regulations 2001 (Cth), reg 7.9.102 (Australia), available at 

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca2001172/; discussion with Australian regulators (Feb. 22, 2011). 183 Hong Kong Exchange Rules, Eleventh Schedule, Rule 5. 184 See Warsaw Stock Exchange Rules, § 107, § 171a , available at 

http://www.gpw.pl/pub/files/PDF/regulacje/rules-wse.pdf; Act on Trading in Financial Instruments (2005), available 

at http://www.knf.gov.pl/en/Images/ustawa_o_obrocie_aktualizacja_2011_tcm81-26532; Detailed Exchange 

Trading Rules (Poland), Short Sale Ch. 12 (the exchange management board puts out the detailed scope of 

information to be included in order), available at http://www.gpw.pl/pub/files/PDF/regulacje/SZOG-en.pdf,. Volume 

information is available at http://www.gpw.pl/krotka_sprzedaz_pelna_wersja_en. 185 See Exchange Act Release No. 67457, 76 FR at 45721, Section II.A.1 (discussion of data qualities). 186 See Exchange Act Release No. 67457, 76 FR at 45730-31; supra Section II.A.2.a. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 29 
 

 

 

 

 

approved NMS Plan, which would create, implement, and maintain a CAT, the Commission and 

other regulators will have access to the data necessary to quickly identify short sellers and short 

position holders.187 

Despite an apparent lack of interest in the additional short selling volume and transaction 

data that became available post-crisis,188 many market participants indicate an interest in more 

public short selling data.189 Some market participants point to weaknesses in currently available 

data, to asymmetry between long and short reporting, or to the need for information on voting 

rights or market sentiment while other market participants generally advocated for more 

information about short selling, either publicly or to regulators.190 However, relatively few called 

for either the real-time transaction marks or short position reports specified in Section 417 of the 

Dodd-Frank Act.191 In fact, several commenters specifically conditioned their support for public 

disclosure on a non-real-time regime involving a delay, with proposed delays ranging from 1 to 

45 days.192 

187 See Exchange Act Release No. 67457, 76 FR at 45721. 188 See discussion supra Section III.A.3.
 189 Of course, the Division recognizes that some interested market participants simply may not know how to access
 

or process either the short sale transaction data or short sale volume data. In addition, the short sale volume data is 

available at the end-of day, but the transaction data, available on a one month delay, may be too stale for many uses.

190 See letters from Shelley Teepe (May 4, 2011); Ruairi O. Nuallain; Peter A. Miller (May 6, 2011); Christine 

Lambrechts (May 6, 2011); Mark W. Hamburg (May 6, 2011); Jeff Dane (May 6, 2011); Eugene F. Harris, Jr. (May 

6, 2011); Suzanne H. Shatto; Karen Polege; John Bird; Robert Bourget; Peter E. Meixler; Neil Moskowitz (May 8, 

2011); Lee R. Donais; Richard Rulewicz (May 8, 2011); Troy Slonecker; Brian Sutcliffe (May 9, 2011); Kelly D. 

Wilson; Jay C. Bexell (May 10, 2011); Larry Sage (May 10, 2011); Kevin Dalton; Gary M. Lieberman (May 10, 

2011); Sally P. Edwards; Jeff Dickey; Laura H. Hearne; Robert Tecca (May 12, 2011); Jane M. Reichhold; Michael
 

Finch (May 19, 2011); Michael Dexter (May 28, 2011); Norman L. Sleesman (May 28, 2011); Raymond E. 

Williams; Reza Ganjavi; Ken Trzecki (May 29, 2011); Don Herr (May 29, 2011); Jordan Gushurst; Alan 

Goldenberg (Jun. 1, 2011); Ed Schweitzer; Overstock.com; IASBDA; James Ballard; Calvin J. Liming (Jun. 6,
 

2011); Iwao Yagami; Joe Nappu (Jun. 14, 2011); Lawrence F. Glaser; David Hart (Jun. 17, 2011); Henry Jakala; and
 

Hans Brost (July 26, 2011). 

191 But see letter from Data Explorers (calling for position reporting to regulators “as soon as practicable” and to the 

public at the end of the day).

192 See letters from NYSE; Data Explorers; and FIF. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 30 
 

 

 

 

Some market participants have expressed the view that the short selling data that is 

currently available is not sufficient for the needs of regulators and other interested parties.193 For 

example, some issuers have stated that the short interest data is too stale to be useful.194 Others 

have argued that short interest data does not include all positions that are economically 

meaningful.195 Some market participants specifically noted that arranged financing is not 

reflected in short interest calculations, even though many believe it to be economically 

significant.196 In addition, the transactional data sets are large, requiring significant skills and 

resources to evaluate.197 

A number of commenters noted that under current regulations, required reporting about 

long positions generally is more visible than required reporting about short positions.198 A few 

commenters defended this asymmetry, stating that long position reporting requirements are 

linked to the exercise of voting rights, whereas holders of short positions do not have voting 

rights.199 Others advocated making short position reporting requirements symmetrical with 

193 Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). 194 Id. 195 Discussion with long and retail investors (Jan. 31, 2011). A number of commenters on this study also raised this 

issue. See, e.g., letters from Karen Polege (May 6, 2011); Suzane H. Shatto; Laura H. Hearne; Troy Slonecker (May 

8, 2011), Lee R. Donais; and Henry Jakala (Jun. 22, 2011). 

196 Discussion with short sellers (January 5, 2011). In an arranged financing transaction, a broker-dealer executes a 

short sale on behalf of a customer and arranges for a stock loan from an affiliate of the broker-dealer. The customer 

pays a fee for the securities loan and provides collateral to the broker-dealer affiliate, in the form of cash (using the 

proceeds from the short sale) or stock, in an amount generally higher than the market value of the securities loaned. 

The affiliate delivers the loaned shares to the executing broker prior to settlement. Upon receipt of the loaned shares, 

the executing broker extinguishes the open short position in the customer’s account and the customer receives all 

proceeds from the short sale. The open short position resulting from an arranged financing transaction is excluded 

from the broker-dealer’s short interest calculation. See New York Stock Exchange, Exchange Hearing Panel 

Decision 00-166 (Sep. 28, 2000), available at http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/00-166.pdf. 197 See letters from MFA; ICI; Data Explorers; and Professor James J. Angel. 198 See letters from Sanjeev Mahalawat (May 5, 2011); Robert Bourget; Lee R. Donais; Kelly D. Wilson (May 9, 

2011); Mourad Zarouri (May 10, 2011); Kevin Dalton (May 10, 2011); Raymond E. Williams; John Crowe (May 

30, 2011); Jordan Gushurst (May 30, 2011); Ed Schweitzer (Jun. 1, 2011); Thomas K. Horeis (Jun. 20, 2011); and 

IBC. 

199 See letters from AIMA and MFA. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 31 
 

 

 

 

 

 

existing Exchange Act Section 13 reporting requirements for long positions, to give regulators, 

issuers, and the public a more comprehensive and balanced view.200 

Several issuers and others expressed a desire for more short selling information to gauge 

market sentiment or to seek clarity on ownership.201 Several commenters noted that additional 

short position reporting could provide information on the separation of economic and voting 

rights that can be associated with “empty voting.”202 The Division notes that certain issuers and 

investors have written to Congress requesting more trading information, including short selling 

information.203 

Not all commenters agreed that market participants need more short selling data. For 

example, some opposed collecting additional data because of the cost and complexity involved, 

and opposed real-time public disclosure of the data because of unintended adverse consequences 

to legitimate market activities.204 Some who opposed making real-time data public expressed 

some degree of support for the collection of additional data for regulators only.205 

200 See letters from Sanjeev Mahalawat; Robert Bourget; Lee R. Donais; Kelly D. Wilson; Mourad Zarouri; Kevin 

Rentzsch; Walter Cruttenden; Reza Ganjavi (May 28, 2011); Raymond E. Williams; Jordan Gushurst; John Crowe; 

Peter J. Chepucavage, International Association of Small Broker Dealers and Advisors, (Jun. 3, 2011) (“IASBDA”);
 

Iwao Yagami; NIRI; NYSE; Henry Jakala; Lawrence A. Yost (July 6, 2011); and Robert H. Jenkins. See also infra
 

notes 477, 478. 

201 Discussions with long investors and retail investors (Jan. 31, 2011) and issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 

11-15, 2011). See also letters from NIRI; Portfolio Recovery Associates; Jon Lukomnik, Executive Director, IRRC 

Institute (May 9, 2011); Walter Cruttenden; Professor James J. Angel; and Overstock.com. 202 See letters from Jon Lukomnik, Executive Director, IRRC Institute (May 9, 2011); Walter Cruttenden; NIRI; and
 

Professor James J. Angel. 

203 See Jacob Bunge, Stock Issuers Seek More Clarity on Ownership Makeup, WALL ST. J. (Mar. 7, 2011).
 204 See letters from SIFMA; AIMA; IAA; CPIC; and STANY.
 205 See, e.g., letters from Alfredo Gamon (May 6, 2011); John J. Scott (May 9, 2011); Iwao Yagami; Janet L. 

McGinness, NYSE Euronext (Jun. 21, 2011) (“NYSE”); MFA; Data Explorers; Manisha Kimmel, Executive 

Director, Financial Information Forum, (Jun. 23, 2011) (“FIF”); AIMA, ICI; IAA; CPIC; and STANY. This point
 

was also noted to the Division in its discussions with, among others, short sellers (Jan. 5, 2011), introducing brokers 

(Jan. 21, 2011), options market makers (Jan. 24, 2011), and data vendors (Mar. 22, 2011). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 32 
	 	 	

 

 

 

IV. Transaction Marking Pilot

As required by Section 417(a)(2)(B) of the Act, the Division studied the possibility of a 

Transaction Marking Pilot, in which five transaction marks would be added to the Consolidated 

Tape:206 short, market maker short, or long for the sell side of the transaction and buy or buy-tocover for the buy side of the transaction. The Division’s analysis of feasibility, benefits, and 

costs first considers the potential economic effect of Transaction Marking and then examines 

whether the voluntary Transaction Marking Pilot would provide additional insight into the 

potential economic effects of Transaction Marking. 

The Division used existing definitions for the marks where available. As described 

above,207 under the current order marking regime and FINRA’s Reporting Facilities, sell orders 

are marked: “long,” “short,” or “short exempt,” and all buy orders are marked “buy.”208 Thus, 

consistent with the definitions of current order marks, the Division used the following 

definitions: 

“long” for a sale of a security that the seller is deemed to own and that is in the physical 

possession or control of the broker or dealer or that is reasonably expected to be 

in the physical possession or control of the broker or dealer by settlement of the 

transaction; 209 

206 The Consolidated Tape comprises Tapes A and B of the Consolidated Tape Plan and Tape C of the Unlisted 

Trading Privileges or “UTP” Plan. Trades in NYSE-listed securities are reported to Tape A; trades in NYSE-Amex,
 

NYSE-Arca, and regional exchange-listed securities are reported to Tape B; and trades in NASDAQ-listed securities 

are reported to Tape C. Transactions in unlisted equities, options, or non-equity securities are not currently reported
 

to the Consolidated Tape. Transactions are reported to the Tape on a real-time basis, which under current
 

Consolidated Tape Association (CTA) rules means within 30 seconds of a trade. 207 See discussion supra Section III.A.3.
 208 See id.
 209 See id.; 17 CFR 242.200 (g); 17 CFR 200 (a)-(f).
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 33 
 

 

 

“short” for any sale of a security that is not a long sale, i.e., a sale of a security that either 

(i) the seller is not deemed to own or (ii) that is not in the physical possession or 

control of the broker-dealer or that is not reasonably expected to be in the physical 

possession or control of the broker-dealer by settlement of the transaction;210 

“short exempt” for any short sale that may be executed or displayed by a trading center 

without regard to the price test restriction of Rule 201 under Regulation SHO 

Rules 201(c) and (d);211 

“buy” (for all purchases that are not “buy-to-cover” transactions, as described below). 

We note that marks currently in use are not submitted to or reported on the Consolidated 

Tape but are required to be maintained as part of broker-dealers’ and exchanges’ order records, 

and most are required, pursuant to FINRA rules, to be submitted to OATS or FINRA’s Reporting 

Facilities.212 

Section 417(a)(2)(B) requires the Division to consider two marks, “market maker short” 

and “buy-to-cover,” that are not current order marks. For purposes of the study, we interpret the 

“market maker short” mark to apply to any sale of a security by a market maker that either (i) the 

market maker is not deemed to own or (ii) that is not in the physical possession or control of the 

broker-dealer or that is not reasonably expected to be in the physical possession or control of the 

broker-dealer by settlement of the transaction). We note, however, that the term “market maker” 

could be interpreted to have a number of possible meanings, which could complicate 

implementation of a “market maker short” mark. These include the approach by the Commission 

210 See 17 CFR 242.200 (g); 17 CFR 200 (a)-(f).
 211 See 17 CFR 242.201(b)(1)(iii)(B), 242.201(c), and 242.201(d). The study does not consider including a “short
 

exempt” mark on the Consolidated Tape, but includes the definition to recognize that the mark currently exists. 

Presumably, reports to the Consolidated Tape would mark transactions involving orders marked “short exempt” as 

“short.” 

212 See supra Section III.B. and note 129 on current order marking requirements under FINRA’s OATS system; see
 

also FINRA Rule 7440. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 34 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and other Federal agencies in the Volcker Rule proposing release,213 as well as statutory214 and 

regulatory215 definitions.216 Thus, the “market maker short” mark could be defined, for example, 

to include all short sales by a registered market maker, or alternatively to include only bona fide 

market making, whether by a registered market maker or otherwise. The Division interprets the 

term “buy-to-cover” to refer to a transaction effected to cover a short sale, i.e., to close out a 

short position by buying the security and then returning it to the lender.217 

Given the speed at which equity markets operate, the Division concludes, at this time, 

that the most feasible way to report transaction marks to the Consolidated Tape in real time 

would be to populate the transaction marks with information from the order marks.218 Transaction 

marks derived from order marks would reflect the investors’ position at the time of order entry, 

213 See Prohibitions and Restrictions on Proprietary Trading and Certain Interests in and Relationships with Hedge 

Funds and Private Equity Funds, Exchange Act Release No. 65545 (Oct. 12, 2011), 76 FR 68846 (Nov. 7, 2011). 

The proposed approach would require that an agency consider certain factors in determining whether trading 

activities constitute proprietary trading rather than market making, including the trading unit’s risk management, 

source of revenue, revenue generation relative to risk, customer-facing activity, payment of fees, commissions and 

spreads and compensation incentives. See 76 FR at 68961-63; see also FINANCIAL STABILITY OVERSIGHT COUNCIL, 

STUDY & RECOMMENDATIONS ON PROHIBITIONS ON PROPRIETARY TRADING & CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS WITH 

HEDGE FUNDS & PRIVATE EQUITY FUNDS 18 -19 (Jan. 2011). 214 See Section 3(a)(38) of the Exchange Act. 15 U.S.C. 78c (3)(a)(38) (defined as “any specialist permitted to act as 

a dealer, any dealer acting in the capacity of block positioner, and any dealer who, with respect to a security, holds 

himself out (by entering quotations in an inter-dealer communications system or otherwise) as being willing to buy 

and sell such security for his own account on a regular or continuous basis.”)

215 See Rule 203(b)(2)(iii) and 203(c)(1) of Regulation SHO, 17 CFR 203(b)(2)(iii) and 17 CFR 242.203(c)(1); see 

also Exchange Act Release No. 50103, 69 FR at 48015; Exchange Act Release No. 58775, 73 FR at 61698-61699. 216 The Commission has identified several activities that are not bona fide market making, including; (i) activity that 

is related to speculative trading strategies or investment purposes of the broker-dealer and is disproportionate to the 

usual market making patterns or practices of the broker-dealer in that security; (ii) continually posting at or near the 

best offer, but not also posting at or near the best bid; or (iii) transactions whereby a market maker enters into an 

arrangement with another broker-dealer or customer in an attempt to use the market maker’s exception for the 

purpose of avoiding compliance with Rule 203(b)(1) by the other broker-dealer or customer. See Exchange Act 

Release No. 50103, 69 FR at 48015. The Commission has identified the following activities as bona-fide market 

making: providing liquidity to a security's market, taking the other side of trades when there are short-term buy-andsell-side imbalances in customer orders, or attempting to prevent excess volatility; a pattern of trading that includes 

both purchases and sales in roughly comparable amounts to provide liquidity to customers or other broker-dealers; 

continuous quotations that are at or near the market on both sides and that are communicated and represented in a 

way that makes them widely accessible to investors and other broker-dealers. See id. 217 As discussed in Section IV.A.2 infra, the Division believes that the “open/close indicator” might provide the 

information for a “buy-to-cover” mark. See infra note 238. 218 An exception would be a situation in which the person reporting the transaction knows that the transaction will 

result in a short sale position, as for short sales that currently do not originate from orders. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 35 
 

 

as under the order marking rules,219 as opposed to the investor’s position at the time of order 

execution.220 As with the current short sale volume and transaction data, using the executions of 

orders marked short could lead to overestimating short sale volume.221 The Division considered 

the position at order execution and believes that, in most situations, it would be incompatible 

with the real-time functioning of the Consolidated Tape. Specifically, for all transaction marks to 

reflect investors’ positions at execution, the transaction report would have to be delayed 

following the execution of orders while the investors are queried as to their positions as of the 

execution time. 

A number of commenters expressed general support for the Transaction Marking Pilot,222 

with some suggesting that it would be a cost-effective means of addressing short sale abuse.223 

Other commenters disagreed, discounting the seriousness of short selling concerns, or stressing 

the costs involved and the existing sources of information.224 

The Division concludes that the Transaction Marking Pilot is unlikely to be cost-effective 

when compared to the baseline. The Division recognizes that Transaction Marking could provide 

valuable new information on real-time market sentiment, particularly if vendors sell summary 

information based on the marks in real time. The Division also recognizes that Transaction 

Marking could discourage abusive short selling, particularly if it enhances real-time SRO 

surveillance. However, the regulatory benefits of Transaction Marking would be modest in light 

of the CAT. As discussed in more detail below,225 adding the specified marks to the Consolidated 

219 See supra notes 125-131 and accompanying text. 220 See generally supra Section III.A.3.
 221 See supra note 138 and accompanying text.
 222 See letters from Overstock.com; Portfolio Recovery Associates; IASBDA; David Hart; Lawrence F. Glover; 

Jordan Gushurst, Don Herr; Norman L. Sleesman; Gary M. Lieberman; Lee R. Donais; and Peter A. Miller. 223 See letters from Overstock.com; Portfolio Recovery Associates; and IASBDA. 224 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; ICI; FIF; CPIC; SIFMA; AIMA; STANY; and Professor James J. Angel.
 225 See infra Section IV.D. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 36 
 

 

 

Tape would be expensive. Hundreds participants would need to update trade reporting systems, 

order management systems, or systems that receive Consolidated Tape feeds to provide for one 

or more of the marks.226 In addition, while the additional real-time information could promote 

price efficiency, it could also harm liquidity by allowing opportunistic traders to anticipate 

market maker trades. 

The Transaction Marking Pilot affecting only a self-selected subset of listed companies 

would entail costs at least as great as, and more likely greater than, those of a full 

implementation. For example, changes to order management and order entry systems would be 

required at all market participants even if the new transaction marks only applied to a subset of 

listed companies. In addition, because the potential effects of Transaction Marking on issuers 

would be unclear and possibly negative, the requirement that the Transaction Marking Pilot be 

“voluntary” could result in the pilot group being too small for a reliable study. Further, the fact 

that the pilot would not be a randomized sample, i.e., it would be composed of the stocks of selfselected issuers, would complicate interpretations of the results of any such pilot, because the 

participants likely would be unrepresentative of the market as a whole. Leaving this important 

caveat aside, the Division has considered what information Transaction Marking could provide 

and the ways different types of market participants could use the information, as well as the 

resulting overall impact on market quality. 

226 Discussion with prime brokers and clearing firms (Feb. 7, 2011). The Division notes that these market 

participants also advised the staff that thousands of market participants would need to modify their order 

management systems to provide for the “buy to cover” mark as well. However, the Division believes that this will be 

unnecessary to the extent an NMS Plan for a CAT is in place. In particular, under this condition, broker-dealers will 

be required to report an “open/close indicator,” which exchanges and others reporting transactions to the Tape can 

use to populate “buy-to-cover” marks. For an explanation of the Division’s view, see Section IV.A.2 infra. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 37 
	 	 	 	

	 	 	 	

 

 

A. Information from Transaction Marking

1. Comparison to Current Data

During periods of market stress when there are an increasing number of rumors about the 

role of short sellers, the utility of timely, accurate information about short selling would be 

particularly high.227 The real-time availability of current “long,” “short,” and “buy” order marks 

alone would significantly improve the timeliness of such information compared to existing short 

selling transactional data sets, such as end-of-day volume and one-month lagged short sale 

transaction data. Real-time availability of all five potential marks would permit an even more 

granular distinction between different types of sell and buy marks and would increase the 

comprehensiveness and precision of the information that market participants could derive from 

transaction data feeds. 

Market participants could infer market sentiment and changes in market sentiment more 

quickly and accurately from the data stream that would result from the transaction marks. In 

particular, the “market maker short” mark would significantly enhance the information conveyed 

by the “short” mark, by separating out short selling by market makers, who typically short to 

facilitate customer buying demand, from potentially well-informed directional short sales.228 (As 

typically used in the academic literature, being “informed” refers to having information 

regarding the future value (short-term or long-term) of the company.) According to several 

227 Discussions with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). See also discussion of 2008 events
 

supra Section II.B. 228 Academic evidence suggests that market makers’ trades typically are not informed. See, e.g. Richard Evans, 

Chris Geczy, David Musto & Adam V. Reed, Failure is an Option: Impediments to Short-Selling and Option Prices, 

22 (5) REV. FIN. STUDIES 1955-80 (Apr. 2009); Engelberg, Reed & Ringgenberg, supra note 67. On the other hand, 

there is some evidence that market makers sometimes engage in informed trading. See Fang Cai, Trader Exploitation 

of Order Flow Information During the LTCM Crisis, 32 Journal of Financial Research 261-84 (2009).
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 38 
 

	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

issuers and market makers, as conveyed in discussions with Division staff,229 separating market 

maker shorts from other shorts would provide issuers and market commentators with additional 

insight into market sentiment.230 The “market maker short” mark also could facilitate regulatory 

monitoring of the use of market maker exceptions to Regulation SHO.231 

Similarly, the “buy-to-cover” mark would increase the information quality of the “buy” 

mark because buy-to-cover transactions could occur for reasons other than regular buys, hence 

signaling different information about stock value. In addition, information about buy-to-cover 

volume would shed light on existing short selling data, because it would provide a more precise 

level of the pattern of outstanding short positions of traded stocks at a point in time, and could 

enable better estimates of the typical holding period for a short seller. 

2. Comparison to Potential CAT Data

This analysis compares the costs and benefits of regulatory use of data from Transaction 

Marking to regulatory use of potential CAT data. If the Commission approves an NMS Plan to 

create, implement, and maintain a CAT, Transaction Marking would provide regulators with 

little additional short selling information, but would provide the same information in a somewhat 

229 Discussions with equity market makers (Jan. 18, 2011) and issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 

2011). 

230 See, e.g., letters from Overstock.com and NIRI. But cf. letter from CPIC (arguing that transaction marks would 

not provide incremental benefits in combating abusive short selling.) 

231 Three Regulation SHO rules include market maker exceptions, although the exception set forth in Rule 201 is 

extremely narrow and applies only in the context of facilitating odd-lot orders for customers as further described 

below. Rule 203(b)(2)(iii) excepts market makers selling short in connection with bona fide market making 

activities from the requirement that prior to effecting a short sale, a short seller must either borrow or have 

reasonable grounds to believe he can borrow a security in time for delivery. See 17 CFR 242.203(b)(2)(iii). Rule 

204(a)(3) provides that fail to deliver positions attributable to bona fide market making activities by a registered 

market maker, options market maker, or other market maker obligated to quote in the over-the-counter market, must 

be closed out by no later than the beginning of regular trading hours on the third consecutive settlement day 

following the settlement date (T+6), rather than the settlement day following the settlement date (T+4). See 17 CFR 

242.204(a)(3). Rule 201 contains a “circuit breaker” that generally imposes a restriction on the price at which 

securities experiencing a severe price decline may be sold short, but affords a very limited exemption for short sale 

orders by market makers to offset customer odd-lot orders or to liquidate an odd-lot position that changes such 

broker’s or dealer’s position by no more than a unit of trading. See 17 CFR 242.201(d)(2). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 39 
 

 

 

 

 

more-timely manner. In particular, the CAT would likely contain enough information to 

determine when a trade involved a long, short, or market maker short sale and a buy or buy-tocover.232 However, Transaction Marking would provide that information to regulators in a moretimely manner than the CAT could. Rule 613(c)(3) requires the SROs to submit an NMS Plan 

that requires broker-dealers and SROs to report certain records on order events by 8:00am on the 

trading day following the day such information was recorded.233 Thus, regulators would not have 

access to all of the CAT data until sometime after 8:00am on the trading day following the day 

such information was recorded.234 Another advantage of Transaction Marking is that while 

regulators might need to process CAT data to identify buy-to-cover and market maker short 

activity, this information would be immediately available on the Consolidated Tape in 

Transaction Marking.235 Both of these advantages of Transaction Marking essentially relate to the 

timeliness of the information available to regulators as opposed to the breadth of information. 

The analysis below compares the potential CAT data to Transaction Marking when 

assessing the feasibility of the Transaction Marking Pilot. In particular, the Division believes that 

some of the changes required to add an “open/close indicator” to order entry and management 

systems could reduce the infrastructure changes that would be required by Transaction Marking. 

If approved, the CAT NMS Plan would require that each order have an “open/close indicator” 

attached as a “material term of the order.”236 The open/close indicator will follow an order from 

232 See supra notes 148-150. 233 See Rule 613(c)(3).
 234 See Rule 613(a)(1)(ii) and the discussion in Section III.C.2 of Exchange Act Release No. 67457, 77 FR at 45721. 235 See supra notes 148-150. In addition, while the CAT does not directly require the identification of market maker 

short sales, the Division believes that CAT data will provide enough information to make such identifications from
 

the Customer-ID, CAT-Reporter-ID, and execution capacity information. See Rule 613(c)(7)(i)(A) and (C) and 

613(c)(7)(v)(D).

236 See Rule 613(c)(7)(i)(F); (c)(7)(ii)(G); (c)(7)(iii)(F); and (j)(7) (including the open/close indicator in the
 

definition of “material terms of the order,” for purposes of the Rule); Exchange Act Release No. 67457, 76 FR at 

45721. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 40 
 

 

	 	 	 	 	 	 	

	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

original receipt or origination, through routing and, if applicable, modification.237 As a result, the 

Division believes that exchanges and others who report transactions to the Consolidated Tape 

will already have the information they need for a “buy-to-cover” mark.238 

The analysis does not compare the CAT to Transaction Marking to analyze the costs and 

benefits of the public availability of data from Transaction Marking. When the CAT Rule was 

adopted, the Commission deemed it premature to require that the NMS Plan include the 

provision of CAT data to third parties.239 

B. Limitations on Information from Transaction Marking

Practical issues of compliance, implementation, and size of the data set would limit the 

benefits of information from Transaction Marking. In particular, as explained further below, 

defining the “market maker short” mark would involve several considerations that would affect 

benefits and costs; interpreting the marks may not be straight forward; and analyzing the marks 

may be impractical for many interested market participants. 

1. Potential considerations in the definition of the “market maker short” mark

As discussed above, the “market maker short” mark is not in current use and is not 

defined in the Dodd-Frank Act or in other securities laws or rules.240 According to commenters, 

the lack of definition presents complications that may affect costs and benefits.241 The 

Commission, if considering a “market maker short” mark, could define such mark to include all 

short sales by a registered market maker, or alternatively to include only bona fide market 

237 Id.
 238 Such a mark could be derived from the “open/close indicator” required by the CAT. See Exchange Act Release 

No. 67457, 76 FR at 45721. See also Exchange Act Release No. 62174, 75 FR at 32575 (“an open/close indicator
 

could be used to indicate when a buy order in a stock is a buy-to-cover on a short sale”).

239 See supra note 151. 240 See supra notes 213-216 and accompanying text. 241 See letters from NYSE and SIFMA, detailing definitional complexities and their importance. The letter from
 

NYSE also raises confidentiality concerns in the case of the single market maker structure. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 41 
 

 

 

 

making, whether by a registered market maker or otherwise. Market participants could use a 

market maker short mark of the first type to distinguish between short selling by market makers, 

which is typically not informative, and short selling by other market participants.242 However, 

under this definition, transactions that are unrelated to bona fide market making activities, and 

thus possibly informative, would also be marked as “market maker shorts.” Regulators and 

broker-dealers could use a “market maker short” mark of the second type to help monitor 

whether exceptions such as the market maker exception to the “locate” rule of Regulation SHO 

were being used appropriately.243 

Market participants expressed concerns that the particular definition of the “market 

maker short” mark influences how consistently market participants interpret and apply the 

definition.244 In particular, market participants informed the Division that they have difficulty 

applying the definition of bona fide market making with regard to exceptions from the locate 

rule.245 The Division believes that applying the definition of bona fide market making to the 

market maker short mark is not likely to add additional compliance costs, because it would only 

be used when the market maker is already relying on the definition of bona fide market making 

to take advantage of the exception to the locate requirement.246 However, the Division recognizes 

that if market participants do not consistently apply the definition of bona fide market making to 

the locate requirement, it will not be consistent in a “market maker short” mark either. Such 

inconsistency could reduce the reliability of some non-regulatory interpretations of the mark. 

242 The preponderance, but not all, of the academic evidence suggests that market makers are uninformed. See supra
 

note 228. 243 See supra note 231 for a discussion of the market maker exception from the locate requirement of Regulation 

SHO Rule 203. 

244 Discussion with prime brokers and clearing firms (Feb. 7, 2011). 245 Id. The staff works with market participants to address these concerns on a regular basis. See, e.g., Regulation
 

SHO FAQ, supra note 132, Question 4.7, available at
 

http://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/mrfaqregsho1204.htm.

246 Id. See also Regulation SHO FAQ, supra note 132, Question 4.7. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 42 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Market participants could implement a mark for registered market makers—as opposed to a 

mark for bona fide market making—more consistently because a market maker either is 

registered or not registered in a particular stock. 

Another consideration would be whether a “market maker short” mark should include 

shorting by options market makers.247 Options market makers sell short the stocks underlying 

options primarily to hedge activity that facilitates customer demand in the options market. 

Further, options market makers benefit from some, but not all, of the same exceptions to 

Regulation SHO as market makers in equities.248 The Division also recognizes that there are 

distinct differences between options market making and market making in the equity markets249 

and that a “market maker short” mark could reflect several different activities. Short selling by 

options market makers and short selling in the course of bona fide market making by market 

makers in the underlying stocks is similar because both occur in the facilitation of customer 

demand and likely do not reflect a view on the future return of the stock. However, they differ in 

that short selling by an options market maker usually reduces the risk exposure of the market 

maker while short selling by the market maker in the underlying stock increases the exposure of 

the market maker to price moves, at least in the short term. 

247 Option market makers indicated to the Division that they should be included in the market marker definition to 

preserve consistency in the interpretation of the marks. Discussion with options market makers (Jan. 24, 2011). 248 As noted supra note 231, there are three market maker exceptions to Reg SHO currently: the odd lot exception to 

Rule 201, the locate exception and the Rule 204 T+6 close out provision. The odd lot exception to Rule 201 is a very 

limited exemption for short sale orders by market makers to offset customer odd-lot orders or to liquidate an odd-lot 

position that changes such broker’s or dealer’s position by no more than a unit of trading; it would not apply to 

option market makers. See 17 CFR 242.201(d)(2); Exchange Act Release No. 61595 (Feb. 26, 2010), 75 FR 11232, 

11266 (Mar. 10, 2010). The other two exceptions, the locate and close out exceptions, are available to option market 

makers with respect to short sales used to hedge bona fide option market maker activity. See 17 CFR 

242.203(b)(2)(iii) and 242.204(a)(3); Exchange Act Release No. 50103, 69 FR at 48015; Exchange Act Release No. 

60388 (July 27, 2009), 74 FR 38266, 38276 (July 31, 2009). Option market makers previously had an exception to 

the threshold security close out requirement of Rule 203(b)(3); that exception was eliminated. Exchange Act Release 

No. 58775, 73 FR at 61690. 

249 See Exchange Act Release No. 61595 (Feb. 26, 2010), 75 FR 11232, 11273 (Mar. 10, 2010). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 43 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

2. Potential limitations in interpreting the marks

Several market participant groups, including short sellers and market makers, noted 

similar concerns about the interpretation of each of the marks,250 including the “short” mark.251 In 

particular, they noted that participants sell short for many reasons, including fundamental or 

technical trading, hedging, or as part of market neutral strategies such as long-short arbitrage, 

and thus there is the potential for misinterpretation of a given short sale or even an increase or 

decrease in short selling volume. Interpretation of the data resulting from Transaction Marking 

would also be difficult if the specified marks did not accurately capture short selling. For 

example, transactions often contain executions of more than one sell order, such as in the 

execution of a single buy order against two sell orders. To represent short selling at least as well 

as current data, the Consolidated Tape would need to include multiple marks for each sale or 

additional data fields.252 In addition, as discussed above,253 the current order marking rules require 

broker-dealers to mark an order as of order placement time and the marks are used for regulatory 

purposes. As discussed above,254 this means that current marking rules might overstate short sales 

in certain circumstances.255 

The potential for market participants to mismark orders, either out of confusion or 

intentionally, could make it more difficult to interpret the data resulting from Transaction 

250 See letters from Data Explorers; AIMA; ICI; CPIC; and SIFMA.
 251 For a discussion of the definition of the “short sale” mark, see supra Section III.A.3 and note 210 and 

accompanying text. 

252 For example, to deal with trades that involve both long and short sales, current transactional data sets use an 

additional field that indicates the size of a short sale if that is different from the trade size. If no such additional field
 

is added to the Consolidated Tape, the resulting data may be noisier than existing transactional data sets. In addition, 

the information signal of any short sale transaction would be cleaner if, in addition to the “market marker short” 

indicator, indicators existed for short sales that are part of a retail, broker-dealer, mutual fund, pension fund, hedge 

fund, or HFT proprietary trading. 

253 See Section III.A.3.
 254 See id.
 255 See letters from AIMA and SIFMA. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 44 
 

 

 

Marking.256 While the Commission and other regulators currently monitor for the latter, it is 

costly to enforce and deter. Further, the former might persist despite honest intentions. For 

example, the more complicated the definition of the “market maker short” mark, the harder it 

would be for market participants to decide when to use it and thus the harder it would be for 

regulators to determine whether they have employed it properly.257 Of course, carefully crafted 

definitions and meaningful regulatory consequences can deter mismarking. 

Printing marks on the Consolidated Tape in real time for Transaction Marking could 

make any inaccuracies, imprecision, and interpretation issues even more problematic to the 

extent that market participants rely on them in making trading decisions. Over time, 

interpretations by professional traders could improve as they learn how to interpret the data, but 

market participants who focused on such information only during a crisis would be unlikely to 

learn how to interpret the data and therefore would be more likely to make poor trading decisions 

based on the data. While professional traders might better adapt, they too could make 

interpretation errors.258 

In addition, the economic distinction between market maker shorts and other short selling 

is not always clear. In most cases, removing market maker shorts from a “short” mark would 

make the “short” mark a better indicator of market sentiment. The difficulties in defining the 

“market maker short” mark, such as those mentioned above, however, might blur the line 

between uninformed market making and informed trading. Further, restrictions on front running 

256 Note that such activities may have regulatory or legal consequences. 257 Under the current order marking scheme, mismarking is monitored for and enforced. See, e.g., Sandell Asset 

Management Corp., Securities Act Release No. 8857, Admin. Proc. File No. 3-12865 (Oct. 10, 2007) (settled action
 

in which the Commission found that short orders were improperly marked long); Goldman Sachs Execution & 

Clearing, L.P., Exchange Act Release No. 55465 (Mar. 14, 2007), Admin. Proc. File No. 3-12590 (settled
 

enforcement action against a prime broker and clearing affiliate for violations arising out of illegal trading scheme
 

which included the mismarking of short sell orders as long).

258 See letters from ICI and Jiri Krol.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 45 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

notwithstanding, market makers might, at times, engage in informed trading using, for example, 

an informational advantage they may have extracted from their client order flow.259 Finally, in 

contrast to the “short” mark, the “buy-to-cover” mark might not necessarily exclude short 

covering by market makers, despite the fact that their short covering purchases might warrant a 

different interpretation than fundamental short sellers’ purchases. Hence, while Transaction 

Marking would provide additional information, that information is likely to imprecisely reflect 

market participant views of firm values and relative price misalignments. This imprecision 

would render the data resulting from any marks difficult to interpret for some purposes. 

3. Potential limitations in analyzing the data

The sheer volume of the data would further limit the utility of Transaction Marking for 

some of the benefits that would accrue to certain investors and issuers. The Division would 

expect 23 million transaction reports per day on the Consolidated Tape initially, and believes that 

volume could grow over time, consistent with historical trends.260 Many market participants, with 

the possible exception of HFTs and other entities with sufficient resources to devote to the 

analysis of the data, would be unable to directly analyze these large data sets in a meaningful 

way.261 As a result, many interested participants would likely have to rely on data vendors who 

might offer products that assist investors with interpreting the data. 

Data vendors told the Division that they would evaluate the data and distribute it 

commercially if it were profitable to do so.262 Although vendors expressed interest in the 

possibility that regulators, issuers, and investors might become customers for products based on 

259 See Ingrid M. Werner, NYSE Order Flow, Spreads, and Information, 6 J. FIN. MARKETS 309-35 (2003). 260 This is the average number of trades per day reported to the consolidated tape during the month of November 

2013, according to the Trades and Quotes data set from NYXdata and data from the Center for Research in 

Securities Prices (CRSP). This should not be confused with the estimated 24 million short position reports discussed
 

in Section V.A.2 infra. 261 See letters from MFA; ICI; Data Explorers; and Professor James J. Angel. 262 Discussions with data vendors (Feb. 4, 2011). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 46 
 

 

 

this data, they were not in a position to estimate demand without engaging in additional market 

research;263 accordingly, the Division is unable to assess whether demand would be sufficient to 

achieve the economies of scale necessary to make products based on this data affordable to most 

market participants. In addition, market participants informed the Division that issuers tend to 

demand short selling data only when their stocks are under pressure and that smaller issuers may 

not have the financial resources to pay for such data under any circumstances.264 Further, because 

of the current lack of products using existing daily short selling volume and transaction data, the 

Division has little confidence that vendors will eventually create such products based on the 

contemplated Transaction Marking data. Nonetheless, despite the uncertain demand and a lack of 

interest in currently available data,265 several data vendors with aligned business models and 

similar products stated that they might be able to deliver products incorporating the marks at a 

profit to some customers.266 

Retail investors, in particular, would be even less likely than other market participants to 

directly analyze Transaction Marking data. They are less likely to have the storage, processing 

capacity, and skills necessary to examine the data in raw form, and are less likely to be able to 

afford the data services of vendors, than are issuers and institutional investors.267 However, a few 

commenters suggested that should retail investors attempt to make use of such data either 

directly or through products provided by their broker-dealer, they could be overwhelmed by the 

amount of information and could misinterpret the data in ways that may result in poor trading 

263 Id.
 264 Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). 265 See supra Sections III.A and III.D.
 266 Discussions with data vendors (Feb. 4, 2011). 267 See letter from FIF. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 47 
	 	 	 	 		

	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

 

decisions.268 One data vendor informed the Division that it could provide profitable products for 

retail traders based on the transaction marks, while online retail brokers stated that they would 

consider offering analytics to active retail traders as long as it would be profitable to do so.269 

Nonetheless, the Division notes that many of the benefits discussed below would accrue to retail 

investors and issuers whether they directly analyze the data or not. 

C. Economic Benefits and Costs

1. Detection of Abusive Short Selling

According to commenters, Transaction Marking might discourage abusive short selling 

because the data from Transaction Marking could help regulators,270 members of the media, and 

others271 monitor markets for potential abusive short selling.272 For example, such data could 

allow interested commentators to conduct forensic analysis of suspected abuses,273 or to discover 

abnormal trading behavior relative to historical trends, such as an increase in short selling 

activity during a price decline that is unrelated to news.274 Once regulators suspected short selling 

manipulation, they could use the transaction marks to identify a sample of trades for evaluation 

and make inquiries for additional data on individual trades. The ability to separate market maker 

short selling from other short selling could further enable regulators to identify a relevant 

268 See, e.g., letters from FIF and SIFMA arguing that the contemplated marks may confuse retail investors and do 

them more harm than good. See also Troy A. Paredes, Blinded by the Light: Information Overload and Its 

Consequences for Securities Regulation, 81 WASH. UNIV. L. Q. 417, 441-43 and sources therein cited at n.111 and 

n.123 (2003); Steven D. Smith, Confidence and Trading Aggressiveness of Naïve Investors: Effects of Information 

Quantity and Consistency, 15(2) REV. ACCT. STUDIES 295-316 (2010); and letter from CPIC. 

269 Discussion with data vendors (Feb. 4, 2011). 270 See letters from Professor James J. Angel; Lee R. Doanis; Don Herr; Overstock.com; IASBDA; NYSE; and Data 

Explorers. But see letter from CPIC, which expressed the view that existing data are adequate for the detection of
 

abusive short selling.

271 See letters from Overstock.com and IASBDA.
 272 See letters from IASBDA and NIRI. 273 See letter from Data Explorers. 274 See letter from Professor James J. Angel. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 48 
 

 

sample, either a market maker sample or a non-market maker sample. If it became easier for 

regulators to detect abusive short selling, it might deter some would-be manipulators from using 

short selling in manipulative schemes.275 

However, the Division believes the benefits of Transaction Marking in enhancing 

monitoring by regulators would be modest, particularly because regulators would have access to 

CAT data, if the Commission approves the NMS Plan. As mentioned above,276 the only 

incremental benefit to regulators from Transaction Marking in addition to the CAT would be the 

timeliness of Transaction Marking on the Consolidated Tape, which would be real time, 

compared to the CAT data, which could be available to regulators the next day.277 Therefore, 

most benefits would be limited to those deriving from enhanced real-time surveillance by SROs, 

which would not be possible with the CAT. Transaction Marking is less likely to provide 

significant benefits for regulatory investigations that use more historical data. 

Likewise, the Division believes the benefits of Transaction Marking in facilitating 

monitoring by non-regulators could be modest. The Division recognizes that the Transaction 

Marking could improve the potential of non-regulators, such as issuers and others in the “private 

sector,” to monitor for abusive short selling relative to existing data. In particular, Transaction 

Marking may provide more timely data relative to current data. Nonetheless, the Division 

believes, along with most of the issuers with which it met,278 that issuers would be unlikely to 

examine transaction marks directly, even if they had concerns about abusive short sellers. Issuers 

that spoke with the Division do not use and, in some cases, were not aware of, existing short 

275 See letters from Christine Lambrechts; IASBDA; and NIRI. 276 See supra Section IV.A.2. 277 As proposed, the CAT would have required real-time reporting, but the adopted rule specified that reporting must 

instead occur by 8am on t+1. The Commission concluded that while there might be some benefits to receiving data 

in real-time, the majority of the benefits of CAT did not require real-time reporting. See Exchange Act Release No. 

67457 (Jul. 18, 2012), 77FR 45721 (Aug. 1, 2012). See also supra note 149. 278 Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 49 
	 	 	

 

 

selling transaction or volume data;279 only one issuer indicated interest in using the marks directly 

to monitor short selling activity in its own stock.280 Thus, the Division believes that the large 

majority of non-regulators such as issuers, with the possible exceptions of issuers in the financial 

services industry and a handful of other companies, would not use the data to detect and deter 

abusive short selling. Instead, they would rely on regulators for such monitoring. 

2. Market Quality

Transaction Marking would be likely to facilitate trading strategies based on the 

information supplied, which could have both positive and negative effects on market quality. As 

discussed below,281 some strategies based on transaction marks could promote price efficiency 

while other strategies or actions could degrade it. In addition, the transaction marks could also 

increase the costs of market making, reducing liquidity, or could increase trading volume, 

enhancing liquidity. How an equilibrium with Transaction Marking would compare with current 

market conditions is unclear.282 The more difficult it would be to use the transaction marks to 

predict traders’ patterns, however, the smaller any negative impacts on market quality would be. 

a. Price Efficiency 

Broadly speaking, transparency changes that help investors better value a stock will 

improve price efficiency.283 Empirical studies also support the idea that short sellers are 

informed, suggesting that information about short selling could help investors better value 

279 See supra Section III.A.3.
 280 But see letter from NIRI (large percentage of survey respondents believed that greater transparency of short sale
 

transactions or positions would help deter short sale abuses or assist in additional appropriate actions to prevent 

them). 

281 See infra Section IV.C.1.a.
 282 See Grossman & Stiglitz, supra note 65. See also letter from FIF, which suggested a five-day delay before the 

marks are made public to mitigate these market quality concerns. 

283 See letter from Overstock.com.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 50 
 

 

 

 

 

stocks.284 Professional traders, particularly HFTs or other algorithmic traders, 285 might seek to 

profit by developing trading strategies based on signals from Transaction Marking. In addition, if 

data vendors found enough demand to profit from products based on the transaction marks, other 

investors might be able to use such products to improve their investment decisions. If these 

HFTs, other algorithmic traders, and other observant investors interpret the transaction marks 

correctly, they could trade to correct an over- or under-valuation sooner than if disclosure of 

short sale related marks continued to be delayed. Empirical academic studies support the 

hypothesis that algorithmic trading promotes price efficiency and price discovery, in particular.286 

Trading strategies incorporating the transaction marks could also negatively impact 

certain market participants in ways that could ultimately degrade price efficiency. In particular, 

the Division considered whether Transaction Marking could facilitate “copycat strategies” that 

seek to profit by copying the activity of others believed to have better information. To the extent 

that copycat traders could detect fundamental short selling in transaction marks, they could 

mimic fundamental short sellers and profit from their research without incurring the cost of that 

research. Such activity could reduce the profits available to fundamental traders, because copycat 

trading might move prices before fundamental traders could fully build their planned positions. If 

it facilitates such trading strategies, Transaction Marking could act as a constraint on 

284 See infra Appendix E: Evidence on Short Selling and Market Quality for a summary of relevant academic 

literature. One academic study finds that prices react to short sales even when short sales are not transparent to the 

market. See Michael J. Aitken, Alex Frino, Michael S. McCorry & Peter L. Swan, Short Sales Are Almost 

Instantaneously Bad News: Evidence from the Australian Stock Exchange, 53(6) J. FIN. 2205-2223 (Dec. 1998). 285 See supra note 68 and Section II.C.1. 286 See Terrence Hendershott, Charles M. Jones & Albert J. Menkveld, Does Algorithmic Trading Improve 

Liquidity?, 66 J. FIN. 1-66 (WFA 2008 Paper, Aug. 30, 2010 forthcoming), available at 

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1100635; Terrence Hendershott & Ryan Riordan, Algorithmic Trading and Information 

(NET Institute, Working Paper No. 09-08, Sept. 2009), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1472050;see also 

Concept Release on Equity Market Structure, Exchange Act Release No. 61358 (Jan. 14, 2010), 75 FR 3594, 3602 

(Jan. 21, 2010). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 51 
 

 

fundamental short selling, reducing the incentives to conduct fundamental research.287 Less 

fundamental research could potentially result in over- or under-pricing, because prices would not 

incorporate information short sellers would have otherwise collected and traded on. 

In addition, the Division considered whether the anticipation of fundamental researchers’ 

trading activity could also reduce the profits from fundamental research. If traders use 

Transaction Marking data to predict future trading of fundamental researchers from their trading 

patterns, they could trade ahead of them, increasing the transaction costs for the predictable 

traders.288 Any order anticipation resulting from Transaction Marking also could negatively affect 

arbitrageurs and technical traders. Such order anticipation strategies, in addition to the copycat 

strategies, could potentially result in a reduction of activity that promotes price efficiency, 

counteracting the improvements noted above. The Division notes, however, that Transaction 

Marking may not provide much value for copycat and order anticipation strategies. In particular, 

the marks would not identify individual participants or strategies, except in stocks with only one 

market maker. 

The Division considered whether issues with the data, including a lack of precision or 

accuracy, or difficulty in interpreting it, could result in periodic temporary price distortions and 

an increase in short term volatility. As noted above,289 Transaction Marking would produce large 

quantities of data that would be difficult to interpret accurately, in part, because there are many 

reasons to sell short. Large professional market participants, such as HFTs or algorithmic traders, 

might learn relatively quickly how to best interpret the information from Transaction Marking. 

287 Several commenters argue that some investors may seek to exploit the research of others if transaction marks or 

short positions are made public. See letters from Data Explorers; ICI; CPIC; SIFMA; and AIMA. See also Grossman 

& Stiglitz, supra note 65. 288 But see letter from IASBDA, which asserts that the contemplated marks will not reveal positions or strategies. In 

the Division’s view, while it is true that the marks will not do so directly, they will provide information from which 

positions and strategies can be inferred, as the letters from NYSE and SIFMA point out. 289 See supra Section IV.B.3. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 52 
 

Their trading would therefore likely correctly interpret the information. However, if the signals 

from the data were imprecise, even these professional traders would sometimes base trading 

decisions on misinterpretations. Several commenters290 pointed to a risk of “herding” behavior, 

“[t]he tendency of investors, like herd animals, to follow the group.”291 According to these 

commenters, the transaction marks could lead traders to misinterpret these imprecise signals and 

trade incorrectly, leading to a reduction in price efficiency.292 The Division also considered 

whether, in addition to the imprecision, investors might interpret unpredictable data inaccuracies, 

such as from data errors, as containing information about fundamental value and trade upon that 

interpretation. The resulting movement of prices would likely reverse as the market learns 

additional information. These temporary price movements may give the appearance of 

overreaction and excess short-term volatility. The Division notes that such issues would not be 

unique to Transaction Marking data and market participants have learned how to adapt to 

imprecision in other data sources to limit their exposure to such imprecision. Further, based on 

experience with short selling transactions data and short selling volume data, the Division 

believes that the data is precise enough to be informative. 

The Division considered whether traders who do not analyze the data thoroughly enough 

to learn how to interpret appropriately the information from Transaction Marking also would risk 

making poor trading decisions based on the data. According to several commenters these less 

sophisticated traders could be overwhelmed by the level of information and lack the resources 

and sophistication to examine such data in depth, and therefore, might rarely pay attention to 

290 See letters from NYSE; MFA; CPIC; and Data Explorers. 291 See LIBR. OF CONG., FED. RES. DIV., ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF 

U.S. INVESTORS (Aug. 2010), available at http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/SEC_Annotated-Bibliography.pdf
 

(“Herding is “[t]he tendency of investors, like herd animals, to follow the group. Such conformity can give rise to
 

bubbles in individual securities and market sectors.”) 

292 See letters from MFA; ICI; CPIC; and AIMA.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 53 
 

 

 

transaction marks.293 When they did, they could make inferior decisions based on transaction 

marks.294 If the focus on transaction marks were correlated across a critical mass of investors, 

such as on a news release or during a crisis, incorrect and correlated trading decisions could 

result in herding that temporarily moves prices away from fundamental levels resulting in an 

overreaction to the news.295 Therefore, under such circumstances, traders making poor 

investment decisions using Transaction Marking data could harm price efficiency and contribute 

to volatility. The Division believes, however, that these risks are low. In particular, the 

circumstances in which traders who do not learn how to interpret information from Transaction 

Marking will make correlated poor trading decisions are likely to be rare. Further, if these 

situations occur, those who can correctly interpret the information have the incentive to trade in a 

way that would dampen any price effects. 

While any reduction in abusive trading that would result from the data’s contribution to 

better regulatory enforcement could improve price efficiency, Transaction Marking could also 

theoretically facilitate abusive trading.296 Transaction Marking could increase the effectiveness of 

short selling manipulation techniques because it could render coordination easier and 

manipulative short selling strategies more profitable. In addition, traders could use the buy-tocover identifier to predict the tipping point when prices have risen enough for a short squeeze to 

become effective.297 The Division notes, however, that the ability, from Transaction Marking and 

other data, to detect abuses may counteract any increased ability to trade abusively. 

293 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; AIMA; ICI; and SIFMA.
 294 See Paredes, supra note 268; Smith, supra note 268; letter from CPIC. 295 Itay Goldstein, Emre Ozdenoren & Kathy Yuan, Trading Frenzy and Its Impact on Real Investment, (J. FIN.
 

ECON., forthcoming), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1360907. 

296 See letters from ICI and CPIC. 297 A short squeeze is a type of manipulation in which prices are manipulated upward to force short sellers out of 

their positions. Short sellers are required by brokers to maintain margin above a certain level. As prices rise, short 

sellers must add cash to their margin accounts or close out their short positions. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 54 
 

 

 

 

b. Liquidity 

The Division believes that Transaction Marking could result in reduced liquidity, 

particularly because of the dissemination of the “market maker short” mark. High market maker 

shorting volume predicts buy-to-cover activity in the near future, making market makers 

particularly vulnerable to squeezes if Transaction Marking makes their shorting public in real 

time.298 Both equity and options market makers pointed to this vulnerability but indicated that 

they do not believe that market makers would exit from market making solely because of the 

adoption of Transaction Marking.299 Instead, prices would incorporate the risk of potential 

adverse effects on their strategies, resulting in wider bid-ask spreads and decreased liquidity 

provision by market makers. If wider market maker bid-ask spreads result in higher transaction 

costs, markets will be less liquid.300 

Transaction Marking could also reduce liquidity if it discouraged liquidity-providing 

short sales from market participants other than market makers.301 Issuers and their representatives 

expressed concern regarding the public disclosure of transaction marks in the form of increased 

visibility and exposure of short sellers and a potential short-term decrease in trading volume and 

liquidity.302 

On the other hand, increased trading volume and the existence of multiple market makers 

could mitigate this liquidity reduction. Having more precise real-time information on short 

selling and market sentiment resulting from Transaction Marking could encourage more trading. 

298 See letters from FIF (predicting that high-frequency traders will use real time marks to trade against market 

makers); CPIC; and SIFMA; Joel Hasbrouck & George Sofianos, The Trades of Market Makers: An Empirical 

Examination of New York Stock Exchange Specialists, 48(5) J. FIN. 1565-1595 (Dec. 1993). 299 Discussions with equity market makers (Jan. 18, 2011) and options market makers (Jan. 24, 2011). 300 See letters from SIFMA; ICI; and CPIC. Because liquidity can be provided by many market participants, an
 

increase in market makers’ spreads does not necessarily translate into higher transaction costs, though it is highly 

likely. 

301 See letters from ICI; Data Explorers; and SIFMA.
 302 Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 55 
 

	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

In addition, for stocks with multiple market makers, the market maker short mark may not 

provide information useful for predicting when market makers need to trade. The harder the task 

of predicting when market makers need to trade, the lower the costs of Transaction Marking to 

market makers. 

3. Capital Formation and Corporate Decisions

The effect of Transaction Marking on capital formation also would be unclear. Short 

selling levels, on average, tend to be lower when prices are falling than when prices are rising.303 

Timely reporting of short sale transactions during periods of market stress that is consistent with 

this result could serve to calm issuer and investor fears about any potentially manipulative 

intentions of short sellers.304 Such evidence might be especially important around market events 

such as follow-on offerings, earnings announcements, corporate restructurings, mergers, and 

acquisitions when there may be particular concern about manipulative short selling. If regulators 

and private entities were able to and did monitor Transaction Marking data for evidence of 

manipulative short selling, that could reassure other market participants. According to 

commenters, this could, in turn, increase investor confidence in the integrity of markets, 

eventually leading to enhanced capital formation for issuers.305 Issuers might also find 

information about short selling activity in their own stock or in the stock of competitors useful to 

303 See Diether, Lee & Werner, supra note 76; Ekkehart Boehmer, Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang, Which 

Shorts are Informed?, 63 J. FIN. 491-527 (2008). 304 But see letter from SIFMA. In its letter, SIFMA suggests that the exploitation of additional short sale disclosure 

data by market professionals would give them an advantage over retail investors to the point that retail investor 

confidence would ultimately by harmed, rather than enhanced, by these disclosures resulting in reduced participation 

by retail investors. 

305 See letters from Overstock.com; Data Explorers; and Professor James J. Angel. It is the Division’s view that 

investor confidence in the integrity of the markets could impact capital formation through allocative efficiency. Not 

enough investor confidence is economically similar to investors expecting returns that are inaccurately low or risk 

that is inaccurately high. Too much confidence is economically similar to expecting returns that are too high or risk 

that is too low. In either case, investors may not make the investment decisions that are optimal for the economy 

and, as a result, capital formation may suffer. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 56 
 

 

 

gauge market sentiment around various corporate events.306 Transaction Marking could therefore 

result in better corporate decisions. However, if Transaction Marking results in decreased short 

selling and higher transaction costs for investors then the potential deterioration in price 

efficiency might also impede capital formation and capital allocation efficiency, counteracting 

these beneficial effects.307 Allocative efficiency, in particular, would be vulnerable if investors 

made inferior investment decisions based on this data. However, as noted in Section IV.C.2.a 

above, the Division does not believe that price distortions from correlated inferior investment 

decisions is a likely effect of Transaction Marking. 

Public information about short selling could directly affect capital formation during 

follow-on or convertible offerings. For example, issuers can expect better terms in a convertible 

offering if investors are able to hedge their participation in the offering.308 Commenters noted 

that, because in their view Transaction Marking could potentially increase the risk and cost of 

short selling in general, such a regime would tend to discourage hedging strategies used for risk 

management.309 If the Transaction Marking regime made short selling more costly for these 

investors, they would require higher expected returns from convertible offerings, resulting in a 

higher cost of capital, harming capital formation.310 Some issuers indicated that short sellers are 

natural purchasers in follow-on offerings of shares, subject to compliance with the securities 

laws and rules, including Rule 105 of Regulation M.311 Issuers could use information on the level 

306 See letters from Overstock.com and NIRI, citing membership survey showing that issuers follow short interest 

primarily to gauge investor sentiment.

307Cf. letter from Overstock.com (anticipating increased cost of capital as “phony liquidity” offered by short sellers 

disappears with increased disclosure and surveillance.) 308 See, e.g., Brown, et al., supra note 86. 309 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; and CPIC. 310 See Brown, et al., supra note 87 and accompanying text.308 311 Rule 105 provides that a person who sells short during the restricted period, defined generally as a five-day 

period prior to pricing of the offering, cannot purchase in certain offerings. See 17 CFR 242.105; see also supra note 

888. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 57 
 

	 	 	 	

 

of short selling and the expected need to cover those short positions to time follow-on offerings 

to facilitate capital formation.312 

If Transaction Marking were to result in a reduced level of short selling,313 then another 

indirect effect could be a reduction in portfolio return of any institutional investor that engages in 

securities lending. Lower levels of short selling, particularly long-term short selling such as 

fundamental short selling, could result in less securities lending. Mutual funds and pension plans, 

among other market participants, often supplement their investment returns with proceeds from 

securities lending. Therefore, as long as at least part of the proceeds from securities lending 

flows to the investment portfolio, a reduction in short selling could mean lower returns for 

investors in mutual funds, pension plans, and other securities lenders.314 

4. Research and Rulemaking Benefits

The more-timely and more granular Transaction Marking data would improve the quality 

and expand the scope of research by both academics and regulators, which would better inform 

market participants and independent observers as well as the Commission and SROs. It would 

allow market participants, independent observers and SROs, as well as the Commission and its 

staff, to better study and monitor market dynamics on an ongoing basis.315 For example, 

Transaction Marking data would facilitate research of how and when short sellers were trading 

on fundamentals, on market making short selling activities, and on various trading strategies. 

Transaction Marking data also could improve the information available for policy decisions. 

More timely marks would also increase market participants’ and regulators’ abilities to promptly 

312 Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). 313 See letters from ICI; Data Explorers; and SIFMA.
 314 Commenters argue that increased public short selling disclosure may result in reduced short selling and,
 

therefore, lower revenues to institutions that maintain long positions in equities for extended periods such as pension
 

funds. See, e.g., letter from AIMA. 315 See letters from Norman L. Sleesman; IASBDA; and Professor James J. Angel. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 58 
 

 

 

 

and appropriately analyze concerns regarding short selling, especially during times of market 

distress, and they would facilitate consideration of whether contingency measures should be 

introduced in crisis situations.316 

Finally, as noted above, regulators could use Transaction Marking data to better evaluate 

regulatory compliance with, for example, the use of market maker exemptions and whether 

registered market makers trade in liquidity-providing ways.317 In discussions, market participants 

agreed that regulators should have regular access to this type of data for surveillance, 

enforcement, and other regulatory purposes.318 The Division notes, however, that research and 

many regulatory benefits would not depend on the real-time dissemination feature of Transaction 

Marking, and would likely be similar as long as Transaction Marking data were made publicly 

available with a reasonable delay. 

The Division also considered whether Transaction Marking would generate more 

research opportunities for regulators, producing rulemaking benefits relative to benefits from 

research by regulators that eventually might result from the CAT. As noted above,319 Transaction 

Marking would be likely to provide timelier information to regulators than CAT by 

approximately one day. However, this timeliness might not be of much value to the research 

conducted by regulators. In particular, policy research generally involves months of analysis and 

interpretation. As a result, regulators would be unlikely to make significant progress on studies 

using Transaction Marking data before data resulting from the CAT would be available to them. 

316 See letter from Overstock.com, urging that the contemplated marks will help investors and regulators understand
 

price movements. 

317 See supra Section IV.A. 318 Discussions with long and retail investors (Jan. 31, 2011), issuers and issuers’ representatives (Jan. 31, 2011). 319 See supra Section IV.A.2 and note 235.
 

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D. Feasibility and Compliance Costs

The Division believes that the Consolidated Tape could include short sale marks using 

the current infrastructure for marking orders and reporting trades in all exchange-listed stocks, 

making Transaction Marking clearly feasible. According to commenters, however, adding the 

short sale marks specified in the Transaction Marking Pilot would require infrastructure changes 

to the Consolidated Tape, to trade reporting systems, to order management systems, and 

potentially to systems that receive and process Consolidated Tape feeds.320 According to some 

commenters, the cost of these changes could be significant.321 

1. Consolidated Tape Systems

Making changes to the Consolidated Tape would require systems changes and capacity 

upgrades at the two securities information processors (“SIPs”)322 that collect and transmit the 

Consolidated Tape reports, at the thirteen stock exchanges323 and two reporting facilities that 

participate in the Consolidated Tape Plan and the Unlisted Trading Privileges Plan,324 and at all 

other market participants that report transactions to FINRA’s Reporting Facilities, such as 

broker-dealers.325 Because each transaction contains at least one buyer and one seller, 

Transaction Marking would require adding at least two fields with multiple values to the 

320 See, e.g., letters from NYSE; FIF; and MFA. 321 See, e.g., letter from MFA; SIFMA; and FIF. But see letter from Peter J. Chepucavage. 322 A SIP is any person engaged in the business of (i) collecting, processing, or preparing for distribution or 

publication, or assisting, participating in, or coordinating the distribution or publication of, information with respect 

to transactions in or quotations for any security (other than an exempted security) or (ii) distributing or publishing 

(whether by means of a ticker tape, a communications network, a terminal display device, or otherwise) on a current 

and continuing basis, information with respect to such transactions or quotations. See 15 USCS §78c (22)(A). There 

are two SIPs currently: Nasdaq for Nasdaq-listed securities and Securities Industry Automation Corporation 

(“SIAC”) for securities listed on an exchange other than Nasdaq.

323 A “registered national securities exchange” is a securities exchange that has registered with the Commission 

under Section 6 of the Exchange Act. See 15 U.S.C. 78f. Currently, there are 18 registered national securities 

exchanges, of which 13 trade stocks and thus report trades to the Consolidated Tape.

324 See supra note 206. 325 See letters from NYSE; SIFMA; and AIMA. Discussion with equity market makers (Jan. 18, 2011). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 60 
 

 

 

 

Consolidated Tape to distinguish among the different purchase and sale marks. Modifications to 

the Consolidated Tape could require additional changes to account for trades representing 

executions on behalf of more than two parties.326 The Division understands from conversations 

with market participants that much of the cost of implementing Transaction Marking would be 

fixed but that the programming costs could increase with the number of fields added to the 

tape.327 The ongoing costs of Transaction Marking to the Consolidated Tape would stem from 

increased capacity and maintenance requirements to reduce potential latency caused by the larger 

volume of data.328 

The Division also considered the potential costs of adding transaction marks to the 

Consolidated Tape to vendors and other users who receive Consolidated Tape data feeds. Any 

Consolidated Tape users who receive feeds could incur costs to enable them to accept the 

additional fields. This includes data vendors regardless of whether these data vendors intend to 

incorporate the new fields into their value-added products.329 As noted above,330 data vendors 

would likely consider whether demand for value-added products would justify the costs of 

processing the transaction marks. These costs, including storage, processing, developing metrics, 

programming, and contingency planning, could be sizeable, but vendors would be unlikely to 

incur them if they did not believe that these improvements would prove to be commercially 

viable.331 

326 For example, a transaction could represent a trade between two sellers and one buyer. 327 Discussion with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011).
 328 See letter from Data Explorers. Discussion with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011). 329 See letters from Data Explorers; and FIF. 330 See supra Sections III.D and IV.B.3.
 331 See id.
 

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2. Order Management Systems

In addition to changes directly to the Consolidated Tape, Transaction Marking would 

involve adding order marks to the systems that transmit orders to exchanges and brokerdealers.332 As noted above,333 broker-dealers currently mark orders as “short,” “short exempt,” 

“sell,” and “buy.” Broker-dealers record these marks in their order management systems 

(“OMS”) and order entry systems, which feed the systems that transmit orders elsewhere. If the 

implementation of Transaction Marking occurred after the CAT was operational, the “open/close 

indicator” on OMS would facilitate including the “buy-to-cover” mark on trade reporting 

systems.334 Therefore, the Division contemplates the addition of only the “market maker short” 

mark when assessing implementation and ongoing costs of changes to OMS. 

Commenters did not provide cost estimates for changes to OMS, but did provide 

information on the nature of systems changes required to add a “market maker short” mark.335 To 

support the addition of the “market maker short” mark, any broker-dealer potentially handling 

market maker orders would incur costs to alter their OMS.336 Of the more than 5,000 brokerdealers, the Division believes that hundreds could potentially incur costs to handle market maker 

short orders.337 The thirteen stock exchanges and any other market center that reports transactions 

would also have to modify their systems to accept the additional transaction marks. These 

implementation costs would involve reprogramming the systems for the front-end order entry, 

332 Discussion with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011). See also letter from SIFMA. 333 See supra Section III.A.3.
 334 See supra notes 148-150. The comment letter from FIF recommends eliminating the “buy-to-cover” mark from
 

any pilot study because of the high implementation costs involved, but does not seem to consider the CAT.

335 See letters from SIFMA; NYSE; FIF; and Data Explorers.
 336 See letter from SIFMA. Discussion with introducing brokers (Jan. 21, 2011). 337 The Division downloaded a list of market participants from the internet that revealed that more than 400 market 

participants are registered market makers. The Division verified this number on several locations on the internet. In
 

addition, introducing brokers claimed that they sometimes handle market maker orders. Discussion with introducing
 

brokers (Jan 21, 2011). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 62 
 

 

and for capturing and transmitting the additional fields.338 These costs would potentially be 

limited by the fact that most OMS are set up on variants of the Financial Information eXchange 

(“FIX”) Protocol,339 the most recent versions of which (4.2 and higher) could support the 

additional fields.340 In addition, third party vendors could do much of the updating, creating 

economies of scale and reducing the costs for the broker-dealer clients of particular third party 

vendors. Ongoing costs of changes to OMS would include storage for a larger volume of data, as 

well as the additional bandwidth required to mitigate the potential latency in transmitting data.341 

Market participants would also incur ongoing compliance costs to monitor additional 

order or transaction marks. For example, order entry firms would need to ensure that they were 

correctly marking each order. As is the case under the current order marking regulations, the 

design of Transaction Marking could allow broker-dealers to rely on, where appropriate, their 

reasonable judgment about their clients’ representation regarding the “market maker short” mark. 

The compliance costs could therefore be in line with current order marking compliance costs. 

Market participants did not provide sufficient information for the Division to estimate the 

costs discussed above, but some participants suggested that Reg NMS, Reg SHO Pilot, and Reg 

SHO Rule 201 implementation could provide a reference for estimating the costs.342 Market 

participants estimate that the completion time would be between 120 days and 12 months.343 

338 See letters from NYSE; FIF; and SIFMA.
 339 See letters from Data Explorers; NYSE, and SIFMA. Discussion with introducing brokers (Jan. 21, 2011).
 340 Discussion with introducing brokers (Jan. 21, 2011). 341 See letter from Data Explorers. 342 See letter from FIF; Discussions with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011) and introducing brokers (Jan. 21, 2011). Although the 

SROs did not elaborate on what these costs were in adopting Regulation NMS, the Commission estimated that each 

SRO’s implementation costs would be $5 million per year. See Exchange Act Release No. 51808 (June 5, 2005), 70
 

FR 37496, 37582 (June 29, 2005). In adopting Regulation SHO, the Commission stated that the Regulation SHO
 

pilot could cause additional costs for SROs, but did not include a dollar figure for such estimated costs. See
 

Regulation SHO Adopting Release, 69 FR at 48024. 

343 Discussion with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011). SROs noted that the implementation time could be estimated at around
 

120-plus days from the time exact details are provided. See also letter from FIF estimating 12 months. 

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E. Voluntary Pilot

As described above,344 Section 417(a)(2)(B) of the Dodd-Frank Act requires the Division 

to conduct a study of Transaction Marking through a voluntary pilot program in which issuers 

would make their own determination whether to participate. The objectives of the Transaction 

Marking Pilot could be to evaluate the impact of the regime on the marketplace, such as testing 

hypotheses on the potential costs and benefits described above,345 and to understand the 

likelihood of, and limit the negative effects from, extreme or unanticipated outcomes. The 

quality of such an evaluation would be particularly sensitive to the pilot’s design. To be most 

instructive, the Division believes the Transaction Marking Pilot should facilitate comparison of 

similar stocks with different marking rules, over a sufficiently long period that ideally would 

include different market conditions. However, there is a risk that the Transaction Marking Pilot 

would not achieve these objectives. As discussed below, not only could it suffer from the typical 

limitations of pilots, but its voluntary nature could render the pilot infeasible and could 

complicate the interpretation of the results; moreover, according to commenters, its compliance 

costs could be greater than full implementation of Transaction Marking.346 Many commenters 

expressed skepticism about the Transaction Marking Pilot for these reasons, both in discussions 

with the Division and in comment letters.347 

344 See supra note 1 and accompanying text.
 345 See supra Section IV.C. 346 See, e.g., letters from FIF; SIFMA; and Data Explorers. While the results from any pilot study may provide 

information to inform decision-making, the results must be interpreted within the context of the differences between 

the pilot and a full implementation discussed earlier in this section. Therefore, the Division compares 

implementation and compliance costs of the pilot to full implementation.

347 See, e.g., discussions with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011) and issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011); 

letters from Lee R. Donais; Overstock.com; NYSE; AIMA; and ICI. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 64 
	 	 	

 

 

 

1. General Pilot Limitations

The Division considered whether limitations with most pilots generally would affect the 

utility of the Transaction Marking Pilot and concluded that such limitations are not critical to the 

success of the Transaction Marking Pilot. Pilots generally face limitations related to the 

unpredictable nature of market conditions and confounding events. There is no guarantee that a 

chosen pilot period will experience all market conditions of interest, even if it were to last for 

several years. For example, the Regulation SHO Pilot was in place for more than two years, but, 

as it happened, the market was in a low volatility state until the last few months of the pilot 

period.348 

Pilots also face limitations in the fact that market participants, knowing that a pilot is 

underway, may not act as they would under a permanent regime. Market participants might not 

find it worthwhile during the operation of a pilot to develop algorithms to take advantage of 

potentially profitable signals based on Transaction Marking data, particularly if the pilot only 

includes a subset of equities and is only running for a limited time.349 Short sellers who might 

otherwise engage in manipulative activities may be less likely to do so during a pilot period 

knowing that regulators were watching especially closely. Finally, data vendors might not find it 

worthwhile to offer value-added products that incorporate the new transaction marks if they 

expect the marks would be temporary. 

348 In 2004, the Commission adopted Rule 202T, which provided for the temporary suspension of the short sale 

uptick rule in certain securities so that the Commission and others could study trading behavior in the absence of a 

price test. The pilot expired in July 2007 and volatility started increasing in February 2007. See Exchange Act 

Release No. 50103, 69 FR at 48008; Exchange Act Release No. 50104 (July 28, 2004), 69 FR 48032 (Aug. 6, 2004). 

In the adoption of amendments to Regulation SHO, the Commission said, “the Pilot Results, while dated, in our 

view should continue to inform our decision-making where relevant.” (Exchange Act Release No. 61595 (Feb. 26, 

2010), 75 FR at 11241. 

349 In the view of Division staff, Boehmer, Jones and Zhang provide evidence suggesting that trading behavior may 

not have completely adjusted to the Regulation SHO Pilot. See Ekkehart Boehmer, Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan 

Zhang, Unshackling Short Sellers: The Repeal of the Uptick Rule (Columbia Business School, Working Paper, Dec. 

2008), available at http://www.gsb.columbia.edu/whoswho/getpub.cfm?pub=3231. Despite this effect, Boehmer, 

Jones and Zhang found evidence consistent with the evidence gathered during the Reg SHO Pilot. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 65 
 

 

Such limitations might make a pilot less than ideal, but they might not always be critical 

to the success of a pilot. For the Transaction Marking Pilot, the Division believes that a pilot that 

was in place for a sufficient amount of time might induce investors to develop new trading 

strategies that make use of the data from the pilot. The Transaction Marking could help deter 

abusive short selling in participating equities as effectively as a full implementation. However, 

the results of the Transaction Marking Pilot would depend on whether data vendors who would 

otherwise create value-added products from the transaction marks refrain from doing so for a 

pilot. The Division is not optimistic about broad data vendor participation, even absent a pilot, 

based on the lack of value-added products that make use of existing data.350 

2. Voluntary Participation

The Division considered the relative advantages and disadvantages of the voluntary 

nature of the Transaction Marking Pilot. One advantage of a voluntary pilot is that issuers would 

decide for themselves whether benefits, including the generated data, were sufficient to justify 

the potential costs to the issuers. Nonetheless, the Division believes that a voluntary pilot design 

is unlikely to result in an instructive study of Transaction Marking. In particular, the voluntary 

design would limit the use of the Transaction Marking Pilot as a mechanism for examining 

hypotheses about the potential economic effects of Transaction Marking. Specifically, the 

Division considered the effect of “self-selection” and sample size on the ability of the pilot to 

achieve the objectives described above. 

In a voluntary pilot, issuers could “self-select” such that those who would volunteer for 

the pilot and those that would not volunteer would be different enough to create a “selection 

bias.” The self-selection process that a voluntary pilot creates could complicate the ability to 

350 See supra Sections III.B.3 and III.D. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 66 
 

 

 

compare pilot stocks to other stocks. Econometric techniques exist that can adjust for selection 

bias if the self-selection is predictable.351 However, a selection bias in a voluntary pilot could still 

limit the reliability of applying any conclusions from the pilot to the set of issuers that do not 

participate. The Division believes that the Transaction Marking Pilot sample would be likely to 

consist of a set of issuers that joined the pilot because they believed participation in the pilot 

would benefit them.352 Those issuers that believe participation would be costly would not join. 

The estimated market effects from the Transaction Marking Pilot would represent the effects of 

Transaction Marking on the self-selected, non-representative pilot group, which likely would be 

a poor predictor of effects on public issuers as a whole. In discussions with the Division and 

comment letters, several issuers concurred that a voluntary design might lead to unreliable 

inferences.353 Several commenters suggested alternatives to a voluntary pilot,354 such as selecting 

a fixed number of issuers through a pre-set procedure, e.g., from each listing exchange and 

stratified over average daily trading volume as was done in the Regulation SHO Pilot.355 The 

Division agrees that alternatives to a voluntary pilot would improve the likelihood of discovering 

reliable and useful inferences from a Transaction Marking Pilot. 

A voluntary pilot also would not permit control over sample size, and the Division 

received conflicting predictions of issuer interest in participation in the Transaction Marking 

Pilot. In comment letters and discussions with the Division, issuers generally expressed a lack of 

interest in participation and their representatives expressed a reluctance to encourage 

351 For example, if a person studying the pilot can predict and observe the issuer characteristics, such as size, trading 

volume, stock return performance, or short interest level, that reflect the decision to volunteer, that person could
 

estimate a model that controls for the decision to volunteer. 352 The letters from Professor James J. Angel and AIMA express this opinion as well. 353 Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011); letter from Overstock.com.
 354 See, e.g., letters from Lee R. Donais; Overstock.com; NYSE; AIMA; ICI; and Professor James J. Angel. The 

letter from CPIC, while opposing new short reporting generally, did not object to the Commission conducting a 

pilot, noting that the Commission staff would be able to correct for certain distortions.

355 The letter from the ICI recommends this approach. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 67 
 

 

	 	 	 	

 

 

participation.356 The power of any statistical tests on the data from the Transaction Marking Pilot 

would be at risk if too few issuers were to volunteer. On the other hand, a NIRI survey of its 

2000 issuer members found that 70% of the 224 respondents (a response rate of 11.2% 

comprised mostly of mid-cap and smaller issuers) stated that they would be willing to participate 

in the Transaction Marking Pilot.357 

The feasibility of the Transaction Marking Pilot could improve if the design parameters 

allowed for a more balanced group of participants, such as a lower and upper limit on the number 

of pilot issuers.358 Allowing issuers to opt-in or out throughout the Transaction Marking Pilot 

might encourage issuers to volunteer, but the issues discussed above related to voluntary pilots 

would be amplified if issuers were permitted to change their decision to opt-in or out while the 

Transaction Marking Pilot were ongoing.359 

3. Implementation and Compliance Costs

Finally, the Division considered whether the Transaction Marking Pilot would provide a 

way to study Transaction Marking without incurring the full cost of the implementing 

Transaction Marking. Based on information from commenters and discussions with market 

participants, the Division concludes that this pilot could be more costly than full 

356 Representatives of issuers indicated that they did not believe that any previous history of success with issuer 

volunteering would be applicable to this pilot because in past cases, such as with the Commission’s voluntary 

program for issuers filing financial statements using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (“XBRL”), the 

benefits to volunteering were easy to assess. Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). 

See also letter from AIMA. For information on the Commission’s XBRL voluntary program, see Office of 

Interactive Disclosure: History, available at http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl/oid-history.shtml. 357 NIRI letter and survey data supplied by NIRI. Survey received 244 responses. NIRI members represent 2,000 

publicly-traded companies with approximately $5.4 trillion in stock market capitalization. Overstock.com, which 

offered its participation in any voluntary pilot program, noted the disadvantages of making participation in a pilot 

voluntary. See also letter from Overstock.com. 358 The letter from Professor James J. Angel recommends a limit on the number of pilot firms to ensure a good 

control sample. 

359 The letter from NYSE notes this risk. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 68 
 

 

 

 

implementation.360 Market participants, including SIPs, SROs, broker-dealers, and options 

market makers indicated in discussions with the Division, that the Transaction Marking Pilot 

would require systems and programming changes at least as extensive as would be necessary for 

full implementation.361 Moreover, the programming that would be needed to separate pilot from 

non-pilot issuers would be more complex and expensive than if all issuers were treated 

identically.362 Introducing broker dealers also pointed out the costs to educate clients for a 

Transaction Marking Pilot.363 In sum, the cost of updating the order entry, order management, 

and transaction reporting systems would be at least as great for a pilot as for a full 

implementation, but a pilot would involve the added cost of maintaining systems and code both 

for stocks included in the pilot and for stocks not included in the pilot.364 

In addition, SROs would incur ongoing costs to maintain and track changes to the list of 

participating issuers, and to transmit any changes to market participants and to the Consolidated 

Tape.365 Several exchanges stated in discussions with the Division that their overall process and 

compliance costs to implement the Transaction Marking Pilot might be comparable to those 

incurred in the Regulation SHO Pilot implementation.366 Introducing brokers and their 

representative groups indicated costly difficulties in monitoring a dynamic list of volunteer 

360 See letter from FIF; and Data Explorers. Discussions with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011), introducing brokers (Jan. 24, 

2011), and options market makers (Jan. 24, 2011), In addition, the SIFMA letter states that the additional marks 

would require very significant changes to a variety of systems “whether applied broadly or in connection with a 

limited pilot.” 

361 Discussions with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011), introducing brokers (Jan. 24, 2011), options market makers (Jan. 24, 

2011). 

362 See letter from FIF. Discussions with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011), introducing brokers (Jan. 24, 2011), and options
 

market makers (Jan. 24, 2011). 

363 Discussion with introducing brokers (Jan. 24, 2011). 364 See letter from FIF. 365 The Division believes that listing exchanges are the parties best situated to keep track of the issuers included in
 

the pilot sample. This is even more so in the case of a voluntary pilot because it would be efficient for issuers to 

notify their own listing exchange regarding their participation decisions, and for the exchanges to then notify others
 

and implement the necessary changes.

366 Discussion with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011). The SROs did not elaborate on what those costs were. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 69 
 

	 	 	 	 	

 

issuers, and keeping investors and the market as a whole informed of changes in a pilot 

participant group.367 

V. Real‐Time Short Position Reporting

Consistent with the directive of Dodd-Frank Sections 417(a)(2)(A)(i) and (ii) of the Act, 

the Division also studied the feasibility, benefits, and costs of Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting, studying both public reporting and reporting to FINRA and the Commission only. For 

the purposes of this study, the Division construed “real time” to mean that short sellers would 

report their short positions immediately upon learning of a change in their short positions.368 

The feasibility, benefits, and costs of Real-Time Short Position Reporting are in part a 

function of the definition of “short sale position.” The Division studied short position reporting 

as both: (a) reports of the short positions of particular investors (“identified positions”) or (b) 

reports of the aggregate of all investors’ positions in particular listed securities (“aggregated 

positions”). Identified position reporting would provide much more granular information than 

aggregated position reporting. The Division also considered “short position” defined as both an 

investor’s cash position (that is, its direct short position in the stock) and as an investor’s net 

economic exposure to the stock through all relevant financial instruments. Economic exposure 

would capture derivatives and other ways that investors take financial interests in an issuer. The 

short position of complex entities with multiple divisions, subsidiaries, and trading desks 

depends on the calculation or aggregation level specified: short positions can be aggregated and 

netted across the consolidated group as a whole (“entity level”) or netted and disclosed at the 

367 Discussion with introducing brokers (Jan. 21, 2011). 368 The report contains a discussion of the feasibility of more immediate definitions of “real time” in Section V.A.7 

infra. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 70 
 

 

level of the trading desk where decisions are made (“decision level”). The Division therefore 

studied the impact of the calculation level chosen for reporting requirements. The analysis below 

considers each of the possibilities. The general conclusions of the analysis hold throughout the 

range of possibilities. 

The Division concludes that Real-Time Short Position Reporting is unlikely to be costeffective when compared to the baseline. Like Transaction Marking, Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting might help to deter abusive short selling, but its effect on market quality is unclear. In 

particular, Real-Time Short Position Reporting may degrade market quality if the short positions 

disseminated identify the short sellers. However, also like Transaction Marking, Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting might include much of the same information that regulators could infer from 

the CAT.369 Unlike Transaction Marking, Real-Time Short Position Reporting could require an 

entirely new infrastructure, which could result in significant compliance costs.370 Moreover, as 

discussed below,371 several forms of Real-Time Short Position Reporting would raise feasibility 

issues.372 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting to the Commission and FINRA only—one of the two 

options specified in Section 417(a)(2)(A) of the Act—would not entail the potential costs to 

market quality that could result if the information is publicly available, but would entail the same 

implementation and compliance costs as public Real-Time Short Position Reporting. While 

detailed, identified Real-Time Short Position data could be useful in regulatory investigations 

and for generating market insights through research, regulators could obtain much of the same 

369 See supra note 97. 370 See. e.g., letters from MFA and NYSE. See also discussion infra Section V.A.7. “Feasibility and Compliance 

Costs”).

371 See infra Sections V.A.7 and V.B.6.
 372 See letters from MFA; SIFMA; AIMA; and CPIC. 

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information from the CAT data, if the Commission approves the NMS Plan.373 Although RealTime Short Position data could be more-timely than CAT data,374 most of the regulatory uses of 

short position data would not require real-time access. 

A. Real‐Time Publicly‐Identified Short Position Reporting

The Division first evaluated an interpretation under which short sellers would report 

publicly cash short positions that identified the short seller in real time. Specifically, identified 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting would provide market participants with the following 

information at the time that a short position changes: issuer, identity of the short seller, date and 

time the position changes, and short position in shares and dollar value. Such a regime would 

provide interested market participants with very detailed, current information, and may help to 

deter abusive short selling. Some market participants, however, may use such detailed 

information in ways that ultimately result in costs to market quality, and, for example, disclosure 

requirements that cause short sellers to reveal such detailed information may cause them to 

curtail their short selling activities. In addition, the Division doubts that the public availability of 

short sellers’ identities would provide much, if any, benefit. 

The Commission currently requires some identified position reporting, though not of 

short sales. For example, existing public non-real-time identified position reporting include the 

reporting of long positions required under Section 13 of the Exchange Act on Schedule 13D, 

Form 13F, and Schedule 13G,375 and the various identified short position reporting regimes 

373 See supra note 226. 374 See Rule 613(e)(2), which provides for regulatory access to CAT. 375 See infra Section V.A, note 379, note 380, and note 381 for information on rules promulgated pursuant to
 

Exchange Act Sections 13(d), 13(f) and 13(g).
 

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recently adopted by several foreign jurisdictions in the wake of the financial crisis.376 Identified 

long position reporting is currently required by beneficial owners of more than 5% on Schedules 

13D377 and 13G378 and on Form 13F by institutional investment managers that exercise 

investment discretion over $100 million or more in certain U.S. publicly-traded equity 

securities.379 Short positions are not required to be reported and are not netted against long 

positions on Form 13F. Short positions are not required to be reported on Schedules 13G per 

se, 

380 but may be required incidentally on Schedule 13D under certain circumstances.381 

1. Information That Would Be Provided by Identified Real‐Time Short Position

Reporting

a. Comparison to Current Data 

Publicly-identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting would provide new information 

that is not currently available, and would provide it to all market participants without delay. 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting would provide information on short selling positions and 

position changes within the trading day, which market participants cannot infer using currently 

available information. No currently available data source regularly provides the identities of 

short sellers to the Commission, SROs, or the public. The media, analysts, traders, researchers, 

376 See infra Table C.1: Short Sale Position Reporting Regimes for examples of short position reporting in foreign 

jurisdictions. 

377 See 17 CFR 13d-101. 378 See 17 CFR 13d-102. 379 See 17 CFR 240.13f-1. 380 In lieu of filing Schedule 13D, a beneficial owner holding more than 5% of the outstanding securities may report 

such ownership on an annual basis on the shorter Schedule 13G if the filer certifies that it did not acquire and does 

not hold the securities with the “purpose, or with the effect of, changing or influencing the control” of the issuer or 

in connection with or as a participant in any transaction having such purpose or effect. Short positions are not 

reported on Schedule 13G. See 17 CFR 240.13d-1 and 17CFR 240.13d-102. 381 A sale of shares by a beneficial owner of more than 5% may be short for purposes of Regulation SHO Rule 200 

because “beneficial ownership,” as determined under Rule 13d-3 may be the result of circumstances other than 

ownership as defined by Rule 200 of Regulation SHO. See SEC Div. of Corp. Fin., Compliance and Disclosure 

Interpretations, Exchange Act Sections 13(d) and 13(g) and Regulation 13D-G Beneficial Ownership Reporting, 

Question 104.01, available at http://sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/guidance/reg13d-interp.htm (although short sales by a 

Schedule 13D reporting person normally will not change that person's Rule 13d-3 beneficial ownership because 

such sales do not change the amount of shares over which the reporting person has voting or investment power, such 

sales may trigger a requirement to amend the Schedule 13D pursuant to Rule 13d-2). 

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issuers, and regulators could make use of such information. Issuers, in particular, may be 

interested in who shorts their stock, just as they may be interested in who holds their stock.382 

However the Division finds that few issuers take advantage of currently available short selling 

data.383 The identities of particular short sellers, when coupled with their reputations, could be 

informative for interpreting a particular change in their positions.384 Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting could also provide real-time information on market sentiment, though market 

observers likely can gauge changes in market-wide sentiment using aggregated short position 

data that does not include the identity of the short seller. 

Under current requirements, the existing disclosure for holders of short positions is less 

detailed than existing disclosure for long positions.385 As noted above,386 several commenters 

called for a symmetric disclosure regime for long and short positions.387 The Division does not 

believe that asymmetry in reporting requirements is problematic per se if the concerns addressed 

by the disclosures are similarly asymmetric. For example, more stringent disclosure requirements 

for short sellers might make sense if short sellers could be more disruptive to the market than 

others could be. There is, however, little evidence to suggest that short sales have been more 

disruptive.388 Further, leveraged long positions are a mirror of short positions. Therefore, 

382 Discussion with issuers and issuers’ representatives (Feb. 11-15, 2011). 383 See supra note 118 and referenced text. 384 For example, those examining short position data could view a change in a short selling position differently for a 

short seller with a reputation for making smart trading decisions than they would for a short seller who does not 

have such a reputation.

385 See supra Section V.A, note 379, note 380, and note 381 for information on rules promulgated pursuant to 

Exchange Act Sections 13(d), 13(f), and 13(g). 

386 See supra Section III.D. 387 See supra note 200. 388 The Division looked at public data of Commission Enforcement actions to see whether manipulation by short 

sellers seems more common than other types of manipulation. There were 273 Commission enforcement actions 

from 2004 through 2010 than involved market manipulation. Of these, only 14% involved short-side manipulation 

while 86% did not involve short selling. While the Division recognizes the report from the Office of Inspector 

General (http://www.sec-oig.gov/Reports/AuditsInspections/2009/450.pdf), the Division does not believe that the 

dispersion in types of manipulation cases can be fully explained by any failure to further investigate “naked” short 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 74 
 

 

requiring similar disclosure of leveraged long positions could address, in part, the expressed 

concerns from short sellers about fair treatment. On the other hand, asymmetry could also make 

sense if the objectives of the disclosure differed. The objectives of reporting long positions under 

Section 13 of the Exchange Act are related more to corporate control389 and investment manager 

position disclosure390 than to abusive trading. Therefore, the Division does not believe that short 

position reporting should necessarily be symmetric with long position reporting. 

b. Comparison to CAT and other potential future data 

If the Commission approves the CAT NMS Plan and the CAT is implemented, RealTime Short Position Reporting would provide regulators with little new information but could 

provide them with timelier information relative to CAT. In particular, sometime after 8:00am on 

the day following the day on which the information was recorded,391 regulators could use CAT 

transaction and account holder information to estimate short sale positions that changed the 

previous day.392 Attempting to ascertain short positions from the CAT data would necessarily 

involve estimation and therefore could lack precision relative to Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting. By contrast, identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting would provide short 

sellers’ actual positions in real time. 

selling claims. Indeed, only 19.2% of manipulation cases involved short sales since 2009. See also letter from 

AIMA; and Engelberg, Reed, & Ringgenberg, supra note 67. (The ability of short sellers to predict future returns 

comes not from abuse but from skillfully interpreting public information). But see letters from Suzanne H Shatto; 

Jordan Gushurst; and IBC. 

389 See Exchange Act Release No. 37403 (July 5, 1996), 1996 WL 37421 (July 3, 1996) (“The beneficial ownership 

reporting requirements embodied in Sections 13(d) and 13(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 . . . and the 

regulations adopted thereunder are intended to provide investors and the subject issuer with information about 

accumulations of securities that may have the potential to change or influence control of the issuer.”) 390 See Exchange Act Release No. 15461 (Jan. 5, 1979), 44 FR 3033 (Jan. 15, 1979) (“The reporting system required 

by Section 13(f) is intended to create in the Commission a central repository of historical and current data about the 

investment activities of institutional investment managers, in order to improve the body of factual data available and 

to facilitate consideration of the influence and impact of institutional investment managers on the securities markets 

and the public policy implications of that influence.”) 

391 See supra note 149. 392 See supra note 234. 

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As stated above, the use of the CAT as a baseline necessarily separates the information 

available to regulators and the information available to the public.393 This analysis does not 

compare the CAT to the identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting to analyze the costs and 

benefits of the public availability of data from Real-Time Short Position Reporting. As noted 

above, the Commission deemed it premature to require that CAT data be provided to third 

parties.394 

2. Limitations on Information from Real‐Time Identified Short Position Reporting

As with Transaction Marking, practical issues of compliance, implementation, and size of 

the data set would limit the benefits of any information provided by identified Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting. In particular, as explained further below, real-time data could contain errors 

if reported manually, interpreting the position reports may not be straight forward, and analyzing 

the data may be impractical for many interested market participants. 

The Division considered whether data errors could limit the value of the real-time short 

sale position information.395 Identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could be subject to 

human error, particularly if short sellers manually report their positions. Further, if reports were 

disseminated upon receipt and without verification, as a “real-time” regime would appear to 

contemplate, erroneous identified short positions made public could adversely affect the market 

for a stock. In discussions with the Division, most market participants said that they would not be 

likely to trust identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting data, and would prefer verified data 

with a time delay, which they believe would likely be more accurate than real-time data.396 

393 See supra Section III.B.1.
 394 See supra notes 151 and 277. 395 See letter from AIMA. 

396 Discussions with long and retail investors (Jan. 31, 2011), issuers and issuers’ representatives (Jan. 31, 2011). 

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The volume of short selling and covering transactions that would result in updated short 

positions, which the Division estimates could be about 24 million short position changes per day, 

would limit the utility of identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting.397 Most market 

participants, with the exception of sophisticated professional traders, would be unable to directly 

and thoroughly analyze data of this size.398 These market participants would either rely on data 

vendors to process and analyze identified Real-Time Short Position data into a more convenient 

form, or risk making inferior decisions based on unprocessed data. As with the transaction data 

above,399 vendors indicated interest in creating products based on these data but would be 

unlikely to produce such products without sufficient demand.400 

Knowing in real time the identities of short sellers and their reputations could help market 

participants, regulators, and market observers interpret whether a change in a position was likely 

related to that short seller’s assessment of the stock value. Nonetheless such interpretations could 

potentially be mistaken, given the many possible motivations for a short sale, the volume of the 

data, and the potential number of short sellers.401 

3. Detection of Abusive Short Selling

The Division considered whether identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could 

benefit investors by further facilitating the detection and deterrence of abusive short selling. 

397 The Division estimates the number of short position changes could be about 24 million per day, on average; this 

is twice the daily average of the number of short sale transactions during the month of November 2013. We double 

the number of short sale transactions because we assume there are as many “buy-to-cover” transactions as there are 

short sale transactions and both transaction types would result in updated short positions. November 2013 short sale 

transaction data is from the individual SROs (See supra note 25 for hyperlinks to the underlying data and supra 

Section III.A.3 for background information on the data. The estimate of short sale position changes should not be 

confused with the estimated number of transactions reported to the consolidated tape from Section IV.B which is 23 

million. 

398 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; FIF; SIFMA; and STANY; see also discussions with long and retail 

investors, supra note 396. 399 See supra Section IV.B.3. 400 Discussion with data vendors (Feb. 4, 2011). 401 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; ICI; CPIC; SIFMA; AIMA and STANY. But see letters from Lee R. 

Donais and NIRI for dissenting views. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 77 
 

However, as with Transaction Marking, the Division believes the benefits from public 

monitoring could be modest as few non-regulators may actually monitor trading for potentially 

abusive short selling. 

Identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could enable regulators, market observers, 

and market participants to identify any short sellers holding large positions or exhibiting 

suspicious trading patterns, more efficiently than with current data sources.402 Furthermore, the 

information provided by identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could help identify short 

sellers that might have an incentive to depress stock prices by spreading false rumors.403 

Identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could help market participants, market 

observers, and regulators monitor for and help deter abusive short selling to an even greater 

extent than could be expected of Transaction Marking.404 In particular, identified Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting would provide more precise short position information than could be 

inferred from Transaction Marking, especially because it would identify the short sellers. In 

addition, an analysis of changes in identified Real-Time Short Positions could provide much of 

the information that Transaction Marking would provide. 

The Division believes, however, that these benefits could be modest. As mentioned 

above,405 most market participants would not have the resources necessary to examine the data to 

monitor for fraud and would be unlikely to redirect resources away from business operations to 

monitor for abusive short selling. Therefore, such market participants, including issuers, would 

be unlikely to use Real-Time Short Position data to continuously monitor the market for abusive 

402 See letters from Lee R. Donais; Jeff Dickey; Don Herr; Professor James J. Angel and ICI (stating regulators 

would benefit from the collected data). But see letters from MFA; CPIC; and STANY (stating that regulators already 

have sufficient data).

403 See letter from IASBDA; Jeff Dickey; and NIRI. 404 See letters from Battle for Trademarks, Ltd.; Lee R. Donais; Robert Grothe; and NIRI. 405 See supra Section V.A.2.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 78 
	 	 	

 

short selling, although they might occasionally use the data to check on particular participants. 

Therefore, the Division expects that only regulators would be in a position to use identified RealTime Short Position data to monitor the markets. However, regulators would also have access to 

data from the CAT, which would contain most of the same information as Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting but would be less timely and potentially less precise than identified RealTime Short Position Reports.406 As noted above407 and below,408 most of the regulatory uses of 

short position data do not require real-time access to the data. 

4. Market Quality

As with Transaction Marking, the Division believes that the net effect of identified RealTime Short Position Reporting on market quality is unclear.409 However, because the Real-Time 

Short Position information in this regime would identify short sellers, some of the potential 

negative effects on market quality of Real-Time Short Position Reporting could be more severe 

than in Transaction Marking. 

The most likely potential real-time users of identified Real-Time Short Position 

information might be similar to the potential real-time users of Transaction Marking data, 

namely HFTs. The Division also expects that some lower frequency traders and investors might 

make decisions based on observing the positions of particular identified short sellers, or short 

selling positions in the aggregate, even if they did not react in real time. 

As noted above,410 heavy short selling activity could indicate that a stock is overvalued. 

Investors could use information on the identity of short sellers in Real-Time Short Position 

406 See supra Sections III.B., IV.A.2 and IV.C.
 407 See discussion supra p. 72 and Section V.
 408 See discussions infra pp. 108, Sections V.E.2, and V.E.3. 409 See letter from Overstock.com (additional data will improve price efficiency). 410 See supra notes 66-67 and accompanying text.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 79 
 

 

Reporting along with information about the short seller’s reputation and likely type of trading 

strategy to determine which positions were likely based on fundamental information. To the 

extent that HFTs or other traders could distinguish the more informed short sellers, they could 

immediately trade on this information and prices could incorporate information faster, 

representing an improvement in price efficiency.411 

As with Transaction Marking, strategies that sought to copy fundamental short sellers or 

try to anticipate the trading decisions of fundamental, arbitrage, or technical short sellers could 

counteract the positive effect of Real-Time Short Position Reporting on price efficiency.412 In the 

case of identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting, this concern would be particularly acute 

because the identification could facilitate inferring and copying the trading strategies of 

particular investors, and could improve order anticipation strategies.413 As a result, traders whose 

successful trading strategies rely on fundamental research and executing short strategies to 

capture the value of the research might curtail their activities under identified Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting.414 Because identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting includes the 

identity of the investor, these effects could be even more harmful to price efficiency than with 

Transaction Marking. 

The Division considered whether the precision and accuracy of identified Real-Time 

Short Position data as well as the ease with which it could be interpreted could also affect price 

efficiency. As noted above, identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting would improve the 

ability of market participants to model potentially informed short selling by examining changes 

411 See letters from IAA; ICI; and John Bird.
 412 See letters from SIFMA and Data Explorers, predicting that market participants would use the new information to
 

the detriment of those required to provide it.

413 See letter from ICI.
 414 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; ICI; CPIC; SIFMA; AIMA; and STANY.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 80 
 

in large short positions. However, errors in the data and imprecision in models seeking to 

identify informed trading would make it more difficult to discern potentially informed short 

selling. Misidentification of informed trading might result in some temporary price dislocations 

and short-term volatility. However, this effect is likely to be lower than the same effect discussed 

above415 for Transaction Marking because the identification of the position holder would make 

interpretation of the data more precise. On the other hand, the additional information provided by 

identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting might amplify the effects of less sophisticated 

traders who commenters fear would be likely to exhibit herd trading behavior around news 

events or during times of crisis.416 During such times, according to commenters, a large number 

of less sophisticated traders, who otherwise would pay little attention to Real-Time Short 

Position data, might pay more attention to the data than normal and misinterpret the data in a 

manner consistent with other less sophisticated traders, resulting in correlated trading.417 The 

Division believes, however, that these risks are low. As discussed in in the context of 

Transaction Marking in Section IV.C.2.a, the circumstances in which traders who do not learn 

how to interpret information from identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting will make 

correlated poor trading decisions are likely to be rare. Further, if these situations occur, those 

who can correctly interpret the information have the incentive to trade in a way that would 

dampen any price effects. 

415 See supra Section IV.B.2. 416 See letters from Overstock.com; NYSE; MFA; CPIC; Data Explorers; and STANY.
 417 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; ICI; CPIC; and AIMA. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 81 
 

 

 

The ability to observe identified positions and their dynamics in real time might also 

facilitate bear raids and short squeezes, which harm price efficiency.418 However, the ability of 

regulators to monitor for such abuses would likely offset this effect. 

In the Division’s discussions with short sellers and in public comments on Form SH, 

short sellers expressed concerns that Real-Time Short Position Reporting could potentially 

subject them to issuer retaliation.419 Short sellers expressed concern that issuers might take action 

against individual short sellers through lawsuits and by forwarding information to regulators in 

attempts to precipitate regulatory investigations, through claims in the media, or by applying 

pressure on the shorting firm through business relationships that may exist outside of trading.420 

Short sellers also indicated that identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting would better 

enable issuers improperly to orchestrate a “short squeeze” of investors who have a short 

position.421 For example, short sellers expressed fears that issuers would coordinate illegally with 

existing shareholders to terminate and recall outstanding securities loans. Unless a “substitute” 

lender could be found, such termination and recall by the securities lenders could result in the 

securities borrowers having to return the borrowed securities, which, in turn, could require the 

short sellers to close out their short positions before they are ready to do so.422 Short sellers also 

told the Division that issuers could refuse to meet with short sellers or not extend to them 

418 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; CPIC; AIMA; and STANY. 419 Discussion with short sellers (January 5, 2011). See letters from MFA; CPIC; AIMA; and STANY. This concern 

is voiced in comments submitted in response to the Commission’s adoption of the interim temporary final rule 

regarding disclosure of short sales and short positions by institutional investment managers discussed in supra 

Section III.A.2 and supra note 108. See also comments on Rule 10a3-T from Richard B. Zabel, Partner, Akin Gump 

Strauss Hauer Feld LLP (Dec. 16, 2008); Stuart J. Kaswell, Executive Vice President & General Counsel, Managed 

Funds Association (Dec. 15, 2008); Ari Burstein, Senior Counsel, Investment Company Institute (Dec. 16, 2008); 

James Chanos, Chairman, Coalition of Private Investment Companies (Dec. 16, 2008); and Patricia A. Poglinco and 

Robert B. Van Grover, Seward and Kissel LLP (Dec. 16, 2008). 

420 See letter from STANY. 421 The Division notes that these actions may violate the Exchange Act, including, but not limited to, Exchange Act 

Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. 

422 Discussion with short sellers (Jan. 5, 2011). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 82 
 

invitations to “investor days” at which issuers discuss their public disclosures with investors, 

thereby creating an informational asymmetry between short sellers and long position holders.423 

One study suggests that issuers’ actions against short sellers may harm price efficiency as issuers 

taking such actions tend to underperform peers in subsequent years, suggesting overvaluation.424 

To the extent that identified short sale position reporting facilitates such activity by issuers, an 

identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting regime could exacerbate this effect on price 

efficiency. 

Identified Real-Time Short Positions could make current information barriers designed to 

keep affiliates from communicating material nonpublic information425 less effective, increasing 

the potential for conflicts of interest in large financial institutions. For example, current or 

potential investment banking clients would likely be displeased with an investment banking firm 

that was selling short their stock. As a result, the investment banking arm of a large financial 

institution might, despite such barriers, attempt to exert pressure on the asset management, 

market making, or proprietary trading arms of a large financial institution to refrain from selling 

short shares of current or potential investment banking clients. 

To the extent that opportunistic traders were able to analyze the data and identify market 

makers or other liquidity providers in identified Real-Time Short Position data, they would be 

able to anticipate when market makers would need to buy, thus enabling them to trade profitably 

at the expense of these liquidity providers.426 Any such activity may tend to reduce liquidity 

423 See letters from MFA and AIMA. 424 See Owen A. Lamont, Go Down Fighting: Short Seller vs. Firms (Yale Sch. of Mgmt., Yale ICF Working Paper 

No. 04-20, July 14, 2004), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=566901.

425 See, e.g., Exchange Act Section 15(g). 426 Discussion with equity market makers (Jan. 18, 2011). 

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because market makers and other liquidity providers might widen spreads in an attempt to offset 

the risks of having opportunistic traders anticipate their need to cover their short positions. 

5. Capital Formation and Corporate Decisions

As with Transaction Marking, the effect of identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting 

on capital formation and corporate decisions is unclear. Some commenters argued that disclosure 

of identified Real-Time Short Positions could benefit capital formation through its effect on 

investor confidence and participation.427 While some commenters argue that an improved 

capability for monitoring by market participants, market observers, and regulators could promote 

investor confidence,428 this was not the unanimous view of commenters.429 Identified Real-Time 

Short Positions could also potentially promote capital formation by allowing corporate issuers to 

consider such information in their decisions regarding raising capital. On the other hand, 

identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could harm capital formation by reducing price 

efficiency and liquidity.430 

As with Transaction Marking, identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could 

potentially impact capital formation during follow-on or convertible offerings.431 Commenters 

noted that, because in their view identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could potentially 

increase the risk and cost of short selling, it would tend to discourage hedging strategies used for 

risk management.432 If identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting made short selling more 

427 See letters from MFA; SIFMA; and Professor James J. Angel. 428 See letters from NIRI and Jeff Dickey. 429 See letters from ICI (citing possible harm to confidence from opportunities for abuse created by additional 

disclosures); MFA (citing possible investor confusion); STANY (favoring investor education to increase investor 

trust); and Suzanne H. Shatto (predicting a crisis of confidence when the extent of short selling is better known). 430 See letters from CPIC; MFA; SIFMA; AIMA; and Data Explorers.
 431 See supra Section IV.C.3. 432 See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; and CPIC. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 84 
 

	 	 	 	 	

 

 

costly for these investors, they may require higher expected returns from convertible offerings, 

resulting in a higher cost of capital, potentially harming capital formation.433 

Finally, identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting might also adversely affect 

investors in mutual funds and pension funds. To the extent that such reports reduced the amount 

of short selling, commenters stated that entities such as mutual funds and pension funds (and thus 

their investors) that engage in securities lending might receive less revenue.434 

6. Research and Rulemaking Benefits

Identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could give market participants, market 

observers (especially academic researchers), and regulators the ability to obtain insight into 

markets that could not be obtained with currently available data.435 For instance, research 

generated by any such data could shed light on how intraday short positions differed from end of 

day positions and the duration of short position holdings. Researchers and regulators could also 

investigate how short sellers supply liquidity during the day, and how that liquidity varied with 

market conditions. Specifically, identified Real-Time Short Position data could help researchers 

and regulators learn how quotes varied with the level of market makers’ short positions and the 

role of shorting in liquidity provision in scenarios such as the events of May 6, 2010.436 Such 

research could inform regulatory policy, oversight of market professionals, and enforcement 

activities. Research of this kind would not be done in real time, however, so while identified 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting likely would allow for informative study, some limited 

delay in reporting would not significantly reduce this benefit. 

433 See supra note 308. 434 See letters from AIMA; ICI; Data Explorers; and SIFMA.
 435 See letters from Norman L. Sleesman; IASBDA; and Professor James J. Angel. 436 See CFTC AND SEC STAFF, FINDINGS REGARDING THE MARKET EVENTS OF MAY 6, 2010 (September 30, 2010), 

available at http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2010/marketevents-report.pdf. 

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7. Feasibility and Compliance Costs

The implementation costs of Real-Time Short Position Reporting would come from two 

sources. First, a responsible party, either a short seller or broker dealer, would incur costs to set 

up systems to report short sale positions. Second, market participants would incur the costs of 

setting up a system to collect and disseminate the position reports. According to market 

participants, new and potentially expensive systems may be necessary to implement identified 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting.437 Existing systems, even if altered, are not capable of 

collecting and disseminating reports directly from short sellers and of doing so in real time.438 

Separate from the costs to implement Real-Time Short Position Reporting, commenters noted 

that ongoing costs to short sellers and others would also be significant.439 

a. Reporting Real-Time Short Positions 

Short sellers themselves often would be in the best position to report their short sale 

positions in real time, unless market intermediaries have immediate access to those positions.440 

Commission staff has noted that hedge funds and other institutional investors typically use 

clearing brokers known as “prime brokers” that offer them multiple financial services, including 

financing.441 According to commenters, prime brokers would not be in a position to report their 

clients’ short positions in real time because hedge funds and other institutions may book their 

positions with more than one prime broker, and in any event prime brokers typically do not know 

437 See letters from NYSE; FIF; and SIFMA.
 438 See letters from FIF; MFA; and AIMA. Discussion with SROs (Jan. 13, 2011).
 439 See letters from MFA; CPIC; and AIMA. 440 One generally consistent element across the foreign regimes is that the positions’ holders report directly either to
 

the public or to the regulators of the jurisdiction. This lends support to the notion that it is feasible for short sellers to
 

report their own positions. However, short position reporting is not done in real time in any foreign jurisdiction. See
 

Table C.1: Short Sale Position Reporting Regimes. 

441 See Prime Broker Committee, SEC No-Action Letter, 1994 WL 808441 (Jan. 25, 1994), available at 

http://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/mr-noaction/pbroker012594-out.pdf. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 86 
 

 

 

the positions their clients hold with them until the end of the trading day.442 Introducing brokers 

and executing brokers would likewise be unable to report identified short sale positions for their 

clients in real time, except for retail clients.443 Institutional short sellers typically use many 

introducing and executing brokers, who individually may have little knowledge of their clients’ 

overall short or long position.444 The Division understands that exchanges have only transaction 

data, rather than position data, and thus would not be able to report identified short sale 

positions. Therefore, Real-Time Short Position Reporting likely would have to place the 

reporting burden on the short sellers themselves as opposed to broker-dealers or exchanges, 

except when broker-dealers know their clients’ positions in real time (i.e., when the client does 

not use separate prime and executing brokers). Comprehensive reporting of identified short sale 

positions in U.S. listed stocks would also require reporting from non-U.S. short sellers of their 

short positions in U.S. listed stocks. 

Commenters noted that the costs to short sellers of reporting their short positions in real 

time could be substantial.445 In particular, not all short sellers have the infrastructure necessary to 

report positions in real time.446 As such, several commenters questioned the feasibility of RealTime Short Position Reporting447 and/or indicated that Real-Time Short Position Reporting 

442 See letters from Data Explorers; FIF; and SIFMA. The letter from FIF also notes that prime brokers and 

custodians would probably need at least until the end of the day to report positions. In our discussion with prime 

brokers (Feb. 7, 2011), they indicated that they typically get information on trades overnight and reconcile that 

information with positions the next day. 

443 See letter from SIFMA. Discussion with introducing brokers (Jan. 21, 2011). 444 In discussions with introducing brokers (Jan. 21, 2011) and prime brokers and clearing firms (Feb. 7, 2011), 

participants indicated that large investors often keep their positions at several prime brokers that offer clearing and 

other custody services, but trade through many other brokers. Prime brokers also indicated that they do not know
 

when they are the sole prime broker for a client. See also letter from FIF. 445 See, e.g., letters from FIF; MFA; and SIFMA.
 446 See letters from CIPC; FIF; and SIFMA.
 447 See letters from FIF; MFA; and AIMA. FIF stated that not all short sellers would have the means to report 

positions themselves. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 87 
 

would require extensive new infrastructure and systems.448 Commenters also suggested 

comparing the costs to those of Form SH.449 For example, SIFMA stated that Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting would be much more significant and burdensome than Form SH and provided 

an example of costs of Form SH for one firm - that firm employed 10-20 individuals to work 

around the clock for two to three weeks to develop and implement a reporting process.450 

Self-reporting of short sale positions by short sellers also raises feasibility issues for any 

definitions of “real time” that require reporting sooner than immediately upon learning of a 

change in a short position. Specifically, the Division considered whether short sellers could 

report their positions at the time of trade execution. However, short sellers may not necessarily 

receive confirmation of executions in real time. For example, when a broker combines the 

outstanding orders of multiple clients into a single order, those clients do not know right away 

how much of their order has executed; the client learns this only after the broker has allocated 

the execution among its clients and sent out trade confirmations.451 Defining “real time” to mean 

at execution time might require that all allocations and trade confirmations be sent to customers 

at execution time. According to commenters, this would require executing brokers to make 

costly changes to their systems to allocate and send out trade confirmations at execution, which 

is inconsistent with the end-of-day allocation batch processing utilized in the securities markets 

today.452 Therefore, without changing the allocation process, feasible Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting may mean end-of-day or next day reporting for some short sellers. 

448 See letters from FIF; MFA; and CIPC.
 449 See, e.g., letters from AIMA; MFA; and SIFMA. 450 Id. 451 This occurs when trades for various clients are grouped and executed simultaneously.
 452 See letters from SIFMA and FIF, which indicate that the current practice is cost-effective relative to alternatives. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 88 
 

 

The Division also considered whether real time should refer to the time when short sellers 

submit an order to trade. Short sellers base their current “long” and “short” order marks on their 

net stock position at the time they place their order.453 This position is calculated based, in part, 

on executed transactions, as well as unexecuted orders. However, many orders never execute. 

Therefore, the Division believes that short positions based on unexecuted orders would be less 

indicative of market sentiment and would lead to many more position changes during the day 

than short positions based on executions. 

b. Collecting and Disseminating Real-Time Short Positions 

As noted above, market participants would incur costs not just in setting up the 

infrastructure to report positions but also in setting up the infrastructure to collect and 

disseminate positions in real time. The Division considered the feasibility and costs of altering 

current systems, such as FINRA’s RFA system or EDGAR. The Division concludes that it is not 

feasible to alter these systems to accommodate Real-Time Short Position Reporting. 

Commenters confirmed this conclusion and indicated that creating a new system to collect and 

disseminate short positions in real time would entail significant expense.454 

Based on discussions with FINRA, the Division understands that the current short interest 

reporting system, FINRA’s RFA system described above,455 cannot be adapted to collect short 

position reports in real time.456 The main problem stems from the current RFA system’s reliance 

on clearing data and clearing firms, which, as noted above,457 currently do not have the 

453 See 17 CFR 242.200. 454 See letters from NYSE; FIF; and SIFMA.
 455 See supra Section III.A.1.
 456 Discussion with SROs (January 13, 2011). 457 See supra notes 440-444 and accompanying text. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 89 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

information necessary to produce the identified Real-Time Short Position reports.458 Instead, 

clearing firms receive aggregate information from their correspondent broker-dealers.459 

One alternative would be to use the collection infrastructure that is currently used for long 

position reporting pursuant to Sections 13(d), 13(f), and 13(g) of the Exchange Act.460 This is 

accomplished by direct reports to the Commission’s EDGAR system.461 EDGAR could collect 

reports directly from short sellers or broker dealers and disseminate them publicly. However, 

according to our technology staff, the use of EDGAR for identified Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting under current technology would require approximately a doubling of the bandwidth 

and would require a reporting delay.462 The reporting delay means real-time dissemination would 

not be feasible at this time if current EDGAR technology collected the reports. 

Aside from FINRA’s RFA system or EDGAR, the Division is not aware of other current 

infrastructures relevant to the collection of identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting data. 

The Division also considered the costs and feasibility of creating a new collection and 

dissemination infrastructure for Real-Time Short Position Reporting. The Division, along with 

some commenters, believes that a new system could be more feasible than adapting a current 

infrastructure,463 though commenters indicated that building a new infrastructure would entail 

458 Discussion with SROs (January 13, 2011). 459 Id.
 460See supra Section V.A, note 379, note 380, and note 381 for information on rules promulgated pursuant to
 

Exchange Act Sections 13(d), 13(f), and 13(g). 

461 See supra note 8.
 462 If EDGAR were to be used to collect and disseminate short position data, there would be an increase of 103 KB 

of data coming in to EDGAR per second on top of the current 121 KB of data per second. This computation assumes 

24 million short position messages per day (see supra note 397) spread equally throughout the six and a half hour
 

trading day with 100 bytes per short sale message.

463 See e.g., letters from NYSE; FIF; and SIFMA.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 90 
 

 

 

 

significant expense.464 SIFMA states that systems for collecting short position reports would 

require “significant infrastructure changes and substantial development.” 

c. Ongoing Costs 

Short sellers also would incur significant ongoing compliance costs to gather and transmit 

real-time position reports, regardless of the infrastructure set up to collect the data.465 These costs 

would increase as a function of any permitted technological latency,466 while still being 

consistent with the mandate for reporting in real time. According to our staff, if real time were 

defined to take into account the minimum latency that technology currently allows, then the 

system would need dedicated fiber-optic lines throughout to achieve that minimum latency. 

Short sellers would incur costs to maintain and monitor the necessary infrastructure. One vendor 

estimated that a single short seller could incur costs of thousands of dollars per month solely to 

lease the fiber optic lines necessary to report its short sale positions in real time to whatever 

entity collected it.467 

Some commenters noted that estimates of the costs of compliance with weekly reporting 

on Form SH468 or with reporting under foreign regimes469 provide references for Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting. In fact, commenters noted that the real-time nature of Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting would involve significantly more ongoing costs than Form SH.470 

Commenters also suggested that weekly or quarterly public short position reporting would yield 

464 See letters from FIF; and SIFMA.
 465 See letters from CPIC. 466 See letter from NYSE. 467 This estimate comes from staff conversations with a vendor outside of the context of this report. 468 See letters from AIMA; CPIC; IAA; and SIFMA. 

469 See letter from AIMA. Citing an FSA survey, AIMA provided figures that firms expected to incur ongoing costs 

of the UK’s short position reporting of US$3.9 million.

470 See letters from CPIC; IAA; and SIFMA. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 91 
 

 

 

 

many of the benefits of the identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting with much lower 

costs.471 

8. Reporting Thresholds 

Some commenters believed that a size threshold level of some sort is implicit in the idea 

of identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting.472 Absent a reporting threshold, the costs of 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting would be particularly burdensome for low volume short 

sellers.473 Several foreign jurisdictions have implemented, or have proposed to implement, short 

position reporting regimes requiring disclosure only of short positions greater than some 

specified threshold.474 Former Exchange Act Rule 10a3-T, which required short position 

reporting on Form SH, had a reporting threshold. It required reporting by large institutional 

managers only of positions exceeding 0.25% of the class of shares or that had a fair market value 

of $1 million or more.475 

Any threshold level chosen would involve a tradeoff between reduced compliance costs 

and reduced benefits, to the extent that some short sale positions would not be reported. Higher 

thresholds would significantly reduce the cost of reporting for short sellers,476 because market 

participants that, as a matter of investment policy, never intentionally exceed the thresholds 

would not have to create and maintain a reporting infrastructure. Higher thresholds could reduce 

benefits, however. Based on conversations with short sellers, setting a threshold for an individual 

position at 5%, which would make the short position reporting requirements symmetric with long 

471 See letters from NYSE; and IAA. 472 See letters from NYSE; AIMA; and Data Explorers. 473 See letters from MFA; AIMA; and SIFMA. But see letter from FIF that states that a threshold would not reduce 

the implementation effort for firms because of the requirement for firms to calculate positions to determine if they 

reach a threshold. 

474 See infra Table C.1: Short Sale Position Reporting Regimes supra for a list of foreign jurisdictions requiring
 

disclosure above certain thresholds. See also supra notes 158-184.
 475 See supra notes 108-109 and accompanying text. 476 See letter from Data Explorers. 

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position reporting, would require almost no short position reporting because short positions of 

this size are extremely rare.477 If this is correct, a 5% reporting threshold would eliminate nearly 

all costs, and nearly all benefits as well. 

The choice of a threshold well below 5% but high enough to exclude only small retail 

short sale positions would significantly reduce the number of short sale positions reported while 

having only a small effect on the total number of reported shares shorted. The experience of 

foreign regulators who have implemented short position reporting regimes with various 

thresholds could prove instructive in quantifying the tradeoff between reduced reporting costs 

and potentially reduced benefits of short position reporting.478 While a threshold set too low 

would capture many short sellers unnecessarily and impose costs without providing much 

benefit, a threshold set too high might incentivize market participants to develop a trading 

strategy designed to avoid reporting their short sale positions. As a result, meaningful short sale 

positions of interest to other market participants, market observers, or regulators479 might go 

unreported. A threshold set at a level where these short positions could “hide” would 

significantly reduce the benefits of short position reporting. 

B. Aggregated, Non‐identified, Real‐Time Short Position Reporting

Aggregated, non-identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could be viewed simply 

as a real-time version of the current short interest regime. Unlike an identified regime discussed 

477 Discussions with short sellers (Jan. 5, 2011). But see letter from Data Explorers which provides numbers showing 

27% of stocks have short interest greater than 5%, which they interpret to mean that many short positions would 

exceed a 5% threshold. The 5% threshold in the comment letter, however, is on an aggregated level in the stock as 

opposed to an individual position. Therefore, the Data Explorers letter does not provide evidence contrary to the 

Division’s conclusion. 

478 Discussions with international regulators (Feb. 15 - Mar. 17, 2011). 479 See letters from Jordan Gushurst and AIMA. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 93 
 

 

above,480 an aggregated regime would reveal to the public only the total of outstanding short 

positions for each stock. Issuers and other market participants would be unable to learn the 

identities or positions of particular short sellers from these data. 

Because short positions are a function of shorting and covering transactions, any 

information disclosed to the public through aggregated short position reports would be, in some 

respects, equivalent to the information disclosed under Transaction Marking discussed in Section 

IV. One difference from Transaction Marking would be the lack of a separation of information 

about market maker shorts from other short sales.481 Information on transactions could be 

inferred from aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting because a rise in the total short 

position in a stock would imply short sale transactions had been executed, while a decrease in the 

aggregated short position in a stock would mean that “buy-to-cover” transactions had occurred. 

However, information on the total short positions would be more difficult to extrapolate from 

Transaction Marking because of the difficulties in interpreting transaction mark data discussed 

above.482 

Because the information content for aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting is 

similar to Transaction Marking and the required infrastructure necessary for aggregated RealTime Short Position Reporting is similar to identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting, the 

feasibility, benefits, and costs of aggregated real-time position reporting would be comparable to 

these previously discussed regimes. As noted above,483 the current short interest infrastructure 

could not be adapted, without significant investment, for real-time reporting and short sellers 

would be the entities most able feasibly to report their short sale positions in real time. Therefore, 

480 See supra Section V.A. 481 See also infra note 533. 482 See supra IV.B.2. 483 See supra Section V.A.7. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 94 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

a feasible means to implement an aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting regime would 

involve short sellers reporting their short sale positions to an entity that then aggregated and 

disseminated those individual positions.484 In such a system, regulators could have access to the 

individual identified short sale positions while the public would see only the total of all short sale 

positions in each stock. 

The Division believes that the benefits of the aggregated Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting are unlikely to be substantial. As discussed below, the data could help investors gauge 

market sentiment in real time, but would provide little benefit in detecting and deterring short 

sale abuse. Aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting would also have unclear effects on 

market quality and capital formation, though some potential effects, such as reduced liquidity 

resulting from increased costs to market makers, could be lower than for identified Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting. The implementation and compliance costs of aggregated Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting, however, would be at least as great as those of identified Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting. 

1. Limitations on Information Provided by Aggregated Short Sale Positions

Aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting would have many of the same 

limitations on the value of the information provided as the identified Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting and Transaction Marking discussed above.485 As in those cases, the data would be 

large and cumbersome to work with (as many changes in positions as data from identified RealTime Short Position Reporting),486 likely limiting its use to market participants who could 

484 The letters from Data Explorers and FIF support the feasibility of this form of reporting. 485 See supra Sections V.A. and IV.B.
 486 In particular, if the data contains a position change, any time a short seller either sells short or buys to cover, the 

aggregated real-time short position data would contain as many observed position changes as would identified realtime short position data. See supra note 397 .
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 95 
	 	 	 	

	 	 	

 

directly analyze the data; information drawn from the data would likely also be relatively 

imprecise. If short sellers were manually to enter their real-time short positions, data errors 

would also be a concern for aggregated real-time short sale positions. 

2. Detection of Abuse

As long as the reporting mechanisms for Aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting 

were similar to that of a regime that identified short sellers, regulators’ ability to detect fraud and 

abuse using the short position reports in the aggregated regime likely would be the same as the 

regulators’ ability in the identified regime. The lack of detail in the information provided to the 

public in aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting would be less useful in assisting the 

public in detecting fraud and abuse than would the information provided by either identified 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting or Transaction Marking. As in identified Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting and Transaction Marking, however, the main detection and deterrent 

functions of the regimes likely would come from regulatory use, as opposed to public use, 

because of the public’s limited ability to process such a large volume of data for this purpose,. 

As in identified Real-Time Short Reporting, regulators would have access to almost the same 

information in CAT data, if the Commission approves the NMS Plan. Therefore, aggregated 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting could help deter short selling abuse about as well as 

identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting. 

3. Market Quality

As with the two regimes discussed above,487 aggregated Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting could have an unclear effect on market quality. However, some of the potential 

effects, both positive and negative, on price efficiency and liquidity would be lower for 

487 See supra Sections IV.C.2 and V.A.4. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 96 
 

 

aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting than for identified Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting. 

The Division considered whether aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting could 

improve price efficiency.488 The aggregation of short positions across short sellers would mean 

that aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting would not benefit price efficiency as much 

as identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting would. In particular, traders would not be able 

to use the reputation of the short seller to model whether a particular real-time short sale position 

change is likely to be profitable. Therefore, the Division believes that such models will be less 

precise than they would be with identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting. 

As with both Transaction Marking489 and identified Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting,490 the potential for public information to promote price efficiency would likely be 

mitigated in whole or in part. The potential for reduced incentives for fundamental research, 

arbitrage, and technical trading would not be as acute in aggregated Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting as in an identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting regime because trading 

activities would be harder to detect, copy, and anticipate from aggregated data. Aggregated realtime short sale positions could harm price efficiency by facilitating abusive trading such as 

coordinated bear raids and short squeezes.491 However, the Division believes that coordinating 

such abusive trading would be harder under aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting than 

it would be under identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting because the ability of abusive 

traders to monitor fellow coordinators would be less precise. On the other hand, as in 

488 Commenters discussed this issue as well. See, e.g., letter from John Bird. 489 See supra Section IV.C.2.
 490 See supra Section V.A.4.
 491 See supra Section IV.C.2 for a discussion of how the Transaction Marking regime might facilitate short selling
 

abuses and supra Section V.A.4 for a discussion of how the ability to observe identified positions and their 

dynamics might facilitate bear raids and short squeezes. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 97 
 

	 	 	

 

Transaction Marking, less sophisticated investors may not analyze aggregated Real-Time Short 

Position data thoroughly enough to use it to make wise trading decisions. The Division notes that 

this risk could be as slight for aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting as it is for 

identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting or Transaction Marking.492 In particular, the 

volume of data would be as large as the volume of identified Real-Time Short Position data.493 

Any adverse effect on liquidity resulting from aggregated Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting is likely to be less severe than that of either identified Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting or Transaction Marking, both of which would risk increasing the cost of market 

making by exposing market makers to opportunistic traders. In an aggregated Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting regime, market makers would not face this same risk because the regime 

would not identify individual market makers. 

4. Capital Formation

The effect of aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting on capital formation is 

unclear. As explained in the above section,494 aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting 

could help deter abusive short selling about as much as identified Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting because regulators’ ability to detect fraud and abuse using the short position reports in 

the aggregated regime would be the same as the regulators’ ability in the identified regime. 

Therefore, the modest investor confidence benefits, and related capital formation improvements, 

that would be attributed to an identified short sale position disclosure regime would also ensue 

from an aggregated short sale position regime. However, because the information in CAT, if the 

492 See letter from AIMA (aggregated unidentified disclosure is still subject to misinterpretation). But see letter from
 

Karen Polege (a retail investor remarks that timely information on short interest would help her make better 

investment decisions). 

493 See supra Section V.A.2.
 494 See supra Section V.B.2. 

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Commission approves the NMS Plan, would be similar to that in aggregated Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting, these benefits would be limited. On the other hand, aggregated Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting could hurt capital formation if it harmed price efficiency and liquidity, 

made hedging more difficult, or reduced the securities lending revenue of mutual funds and 

pension funds. 

5. Research and Rulemaking

The Division believes that aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting would offer 

opportunities to improve the quality of academic studies on short selling relative to studies based 

on the less timely data available today, but would be less valuable than the data from identified 

Real-Time Short Position Reporting. While regulators could have access to identified positions 

under the aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting, academic researchers would not. Of 

course, the ability for academic researchers to identify short sellers would facilitate research on 

certain questions that aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting would not. For example, 

studying the variation in the profitability of short selling strategies across short sellers requires 

identification of particular short sellers and could only be conducted under identified Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting. 

6. Feasibility and Compliance Costs

Aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting would involve implementation and 

compliance costs as high as or higher than the cost of identified Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting. Aggregated Real-Time Short Position Reporting would involve the reporting and 

collection of identified short positions, plus the additional step of aggregating the data before 

disseminating it.495 

495 See supra note 484 and accompanying text. 

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7. Thresholds

While a threshold could reduce the cost of reporting aggregated short sale positions, as 

well as the frequency of position updates and the size of the data, it would necessarily result in a 

total short position that is less than the sum of all individual short positions. This lesser figure 

would potentially not be perfectly correlated with the actual aggregated short sale position if no 

reporting threshold had been used. As with an identified regime, any threshold used in an 

aggregated regime would need to balance these competing considerations. 

C. Definition of Short Sale Positions

Whether Real-Time Short Position Reporting defines Short Position as the position in the 

stock only or as the economic exposure to the stock 496 would affect the costs and benefits 

discussed above. The key term “short sale positions” in Section 417(a)(2) of the Act is not 

defined in the statute, and the term “short sale position” has various definitions across U.S. and 

foreign jurisdictions.497 A “short position” under former Exchange Act Rule 10a3-T498 and 

FINRA Rule 4560499 is gross short sale positions in the stock itself — so-called “cash positions” 

— and does not include other positions that might alter the economic exposure of the combined 

496 Economic exposure refers to any financial interest in a stock, both positively and negatively related to the value 

of the stock, however acquired. For example, an investor may have economic exposure to a company by owning the 

stock itself, or through ownership of an index or of derivatives.

497 See infra Table C.1: Short Sale Position Reporting Regimes for a comparison of short position definitions in 

foreign jurisdictions.

498 Former Exchange Act Rule 10a3-T defined a short position for the purposes of Form SH as “the aggregate gross 

short sales of an issuer's section 13(f) securities (excluding options), less purchases to close out a short sale in the 

same issuer. The Form SH short position is not net of long position in the issuer. If a person that has loaned a 

security to another person sells the security and a bona fide recall is initiated within two business days after trade 

date, the person that has loaned the security is deemed to own the security for purposes of Rule 200(g)(1) and Rule 

200(b) of Regulation SHO, and such sale will not be treated as a short sale.” See supra Section III.A.2 for a 

discussion of Rule 10a3-T and Form SH. 

499 See supra Section III.A.1 for a discussion of FINRA Rule 4560. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 100 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

position.500 The Division’s analysis of both identified and aggregated Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting thus far in this report has been in reference to cash positions. Examples of foreign 

jurisdictions requiring reporting of cash positions include Australia501 and Hong Kong.502 Short 

sale positions could also be defined to include other related instruments, such as derivatives, so 

as to reflect total economic exposure. For example, the current regime in the E.U. takes into 

consideration securities other than the stock itself.503 The Division believes that Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting should attempt to balance the comprehensiveness of economic exposure 

approaches against the costs of complying with them. The Division believes that the most 

reasonable disclosure of economic exposure includes the reporting of gross positions, including 

the position in each instrument that contributes to traders’ economic exposures, with the 

exclusion of positions gained in individual stocks resulting from a position in a broad-based 

index security. 

1. Information Provided by Economic Exposure and Limitations

A cash position report will often not correspond with investors’ economic exposure to the 

security in question, because it typically will not reflect the true economic position of the short 

seller, which might be much larger than the cash position or, conversely, might be fully hedged. 

For example, a market participant might hedge a long position in a call option by shorting the 

number of shares of the underlying stock equal to the option delta times the number of options 

500 For example, a written put option and a long call option combined with a short position in the underlying stock 

would have a payoff similar to a bond. 

501 See Corporations Regulations 2001 (Cth), supra note 182, reg 7.9.99(2) (Australia), which requires reporting of 

short positions in “section 1020 B products.” Section 1020B products are defined in the Australian Corporations Act 

to include securities, managed investment products, and sovereign debentures, stocks or bonds. See Corporations 

Act 2001 (2005) (Cth) s1020A (Australia) 

502 See Hong Kong Consultation Conclusions, supra note 181. 503 The SSR contemplates that short positions include all financial transactions that create economic exposure to an 

issue. See E.U. Regulation No. 236/2012, supra note 166, Article 3. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 101 
 

held. The change in value of such a delta-neutral position, which includes a short position, will 

be approximately zero for small changes in the price of the underlying stock. 

Economic exposure could be defined on either a net or gross basis. A net position is one 

in which all instruments are netted against each other, while a gross position is one in which the 

contribution to the exposure of each instrument is reported. A gross position would provide 

much more granular information on how a net position was established. Commenters suggested a 

number of possible approaches to reporting.504 

To create a complete view of an investor’s economic short exposure, the definition of 

short sale position would have to include all securities that create a financial interest in the 

reported stock, or a gross position. For example, to obtain a short exposure to a single stock in 

the S&P 500, an investor could short an S&P 500 index instrument and purchase the other 499 

stocks. However, including positions held via index funds, as is done in some foreign 

jurisdictions, but in real time would be very complex because it would be difficult to obtain 

information on the composition of index funds in real time.505 However, if index funds were not 

included, investors could avoid disclosure by shorting funds heavily weighted in the particular 

stock or set of stocks the investor wishes to short while purchasing stock in the components to 

which the investor wants no exposure. Such a strategy would be theoretically possible, but likely 

would not be cost-effective.506 

504 The letter from MFA suggests that short physical positions should be reduced by any long exposures in the same
 

issuers, excluding both indices and baskets; the letter from NYSE suggests initially excluding derivatives, while the 

letter from AIMA suggests including derivatives and narrow indices, but excluding broad indices. 505 See letters from MFA; and AIMA. 506 See letter from AIMA. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 102 
	 	 	 	 	

 

 

As discussed above,507 the massive quantity of information resulting from Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting would be difficult for many market participants to analyze 

meaningfully. The Division believes that the number of economic exposure position changes 

short sellers would have to report in real time would be much greater than the number of cash 

positions. For example, an options market maker would likely need to report most option and 

stock transactions. In addition, the complexity of a short sale position report based on economic 

exposure would increase with the complexity of the financial instruments included. To analyze 

economic exposure properly, a market participant would need to have an understanding of all the 

position components. 

2. Economic Benefits and Costs

The Division identified several tradeoffs relevant to defining a short sale position as 

either a cash position or an economic exposure. A central tradeoff would be between the ability 

to detect manipulation and any impact on price efficiency. Relative to a cash position, reporting 

an economic exposure position would help facilitate the detection of market manipulations that 

were carried out through short sale positions established outside of the equity markets. In fact, 

reporting only cash positions could even create incentives for trading away from equity markets 

so that traders could bypass disclosure.508 Theoretically, the reporting regime that would provide 

the highest likelihood of helping to detect market manipulations would involve reporting gross 

short sale positions obtained in each instrument separately, or would involve reporting gross 

507 See supra Sections V.A.2, V.B.1 and V.B.3.
 508 On the other hand, if required to report economic exposure on a net basis, market participants might attempt to
 

hide manipulative trading by taking, for example, offsetting derivative positions. In particular, an investor could 

attempt to hide manipulation by creating an economic long position in options by purchasing deep in the money put
 

options with short expiration and then manipulate the underlying stock downward reducing the net long exposure. 

See Commission Guidance on Rule 3b-3 and Married Put Transactions, Exchange Act Release No. 48795 (Nov. 17,
 

2003), 68 FR 65820, 65821 (Nov. 21, 2003)(using married puts (the simultaneous purchase of a put and its 

underlying securities) to avoid “aggregation obligations” is abusive). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 103 
 

	 	 	 	

 

exposure from trading in the equity markets separate from short sale exposure from trading in all 

other markets. 

The impact of economic exposure reports on market quality, including price efficiency 

and liquidity, compared to the alternative of cash position reporting is unclear. Economic 

exposure reports would likely provide easier to interpret signals concerning the value of a stock, 

because they would distinguish directional bets from hedges.509 This could substantially improve 

the positive effect on price efficiency. However, as discussed above,510 the reporting of economic 

exposure would reduce the incentives for investing in fundamental research, which would have a 

negative effect on price efficiency. Economic exposure reports, particularly of gross positions, 

would supply market participants with more complete information on short sellers’ strategies, 

including hedging strategies, rendering short sellers more vulnerable to order anticipation and 

squeezes providing further disincentives for investing in fundamental research. This could be 

especially costly for liquidity of options market makers and other derivative dealers who manage 

costs and risks by hedging if other market participants can use information on their economic 

exposure to predict their hedging trades. Economic exposure reporting could also harm price 

efficiency more than cash position disclosure if, as commenters fear, less sophisticated investors 

would be more likely to make inferior decisions and exhibit herd trading behavior.511 

3. Feasibility and Compliance Costs

The Division understands that many short sellers track their own economic exposure for 

risk management purposes, though the frequency of netting positions varies across short sellers 

509 See letters from MFA; and Data Explorers. 510 See supra Sections V.A.4 and V.B.3.
 511 See letters from MFA; CPIC; Data Explorers; and STANY. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 104 
 

and prime brokers from real time to end of day.512 Therefore, calculating net exposure in real 

time is likely to be feasible for some short sellers. Indeed, several foreign jurisdictions require 

disclosure of economic exposure, though not in real time.513 Real-Time Short Position Reporting 

representing economic exposure may not be feasible, however, particularly for large financial 

institutions. Conversations with short sellers indicated that few track their economic exposure in 

real time.514 Therefore, a requirement to report economic exposure in real time would likely 

require changes in industry practices and systems that could be very costly to implement. 

The interpretation of economic exposure could be more difficult if it is not calculated 

using a consistent methodology. The change in economic exposure is not necessarily the sum of 

the changes in value of each financial instrument that creates economic exposure and this fact 

complicates the calculation of economic exposure. When the value of a stock changes, the value 

of a derivative or other financial instrument may change by more or less than the value of the 

stock. There are typically several alternative models used for risk management purposes that 

translate the value of the financial instrument into an equivalent exposure to the underlying 

stock. The particular model chosen by a participant and the assumptions and inputs of that model 

can vary by participant. This could lead to participants reporting different economic exposures 

for the same position, which could make it difficult for regulators to determine whether 

participants reported economic exposure consistently and truthfully. 

This issue could be mitigated by specifying a model for measuring economic exposure 

for reporting purposes. Several foreign jurisdictions require that economic exposure be measured 

as “delta exposure,” which is defined as the change in the value of a derivative for a one dollar 

512 Discussions with short sellers (Jan. 5, 2011), Options Market Makers (January 24, 2011), and Prime Brokers and 

Clearing Firms (February 11, 2011). 

513 See infra Table C.1: Short Sale Position Reporting Regimes.
 514 Discussions with short sellers (Jan. 5, 2011). 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 105 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

change in the value of the stock.515 Delta exposure reporting is a relatively simple and 

informative way to capture economic exposure, but has some disadvantages. For example, delta 

varies with changes in market conditions and with the simple passage of time: the delta for an 

option will change over time even if the value of the underlying stock does not. In addition, delta 

estimates can vary across participants, because participants may disagree on the appropriate 

inputs for the models and perhaps even the choice of model used to estimate delta for more 

complex derivatives. 

Because several foreign jurisdictions require reporting economic exposure, the 

compliance costs of implementing such a regime in the U.S. would be related to whether 

international short sellers already comply with a similar system in another country. In particular, 

the costs to short sellers to implement a requirement to calculate economic exposure based on 

delta in one country would likely be lower if they already complied with a similar requirement in 

another country. Having similar requirements across countries also would affect the ability of 

market participants to interpret position information in different countries. To lower costs for 

reporting entities and make it easier for market participants to compare data across jurisdictions, 

the Division believes that coordination with regulators outside the U.S. could be useful. 

D. Calculation Level for Short Sale Positions

The Division considered how aggregating positions to the trading strategy, decision 

maker, or legal entity as part of Real-Time Short Position Reporting would affect the feasibility, 

benefits, and costs. The Division believes that Real-Time Short Position Reporting should 

515 Reporting based on delta exposure is found in for example, the U.K., E.U., and Hong Kong. See infra Table C.1: 

Short Sale Position Reporting Regimes for details. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 106 
 

consider the purpose of the reporting in balancing the tradeoffs associated with the potential 

calculation levels. 

One alternative for reporting short sale positions is at the strategy level. This would 

provide detailed information that could be used for monitoring and detecting abuse. However, 

trading strategies can be difficult to define and may be short lived. Furthermore, defining 

strategies and allocating trades to particular strategies could create opportunities to hide abuse 

by, for example, splitting large short positions between distinct strategies. Identified Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting at the strategy level could also facilitate order anticipation strategies 

and strategies that seek to copy the trading of fundamental short sellers. 

An alternative calculation level is at the level of the decision maker. The decision maker 

is the person or committee that makes the investment decision. Real-Time Short Sale Position 

Reporting at this level might be closest to current practice, potentially making it the least costly 

to implement. Aggregating across multiple strategies should reduce the potential for 

manipulating strategy definitions while still providing detailed information for monitoring and 

detecting abuse.516 Higher levels of aggregation would reduce the volume of data reported but 

could also likely net out much of the detail relevant for detecting abuse. 

Calculation of net position under Regulation SHO is generally based on legal entities. 

However, Regulation SHO also permits, but does not require, each independent trading unit, 

within a broker-dealer, that pursues its own strategies, subject to certain conditions and 

requirements, to aggregate all of its positions in a security to determine its net position for order 

marking purposes.517 This means that the use or non-use of aggregation units under Regulation 

516 See letters from FIF; and IAA. 517 See 17 CFR 242.200 (f), which permits trading unit aggregation if a registered broker-dealer meets the following 

requirements: (1) The broker-dealer has a written plan of organization that identifies each aggregation unit, specifies 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 107 
 

	 	 	 	 	 	 	 		

 

 

 

 

SHO can differ across broker-dealers. Allowing similar flexibility in choosing calculation levels 

in Real-Time Short Position Reporting may entail the lowest compliance costs because the entity 

already aggregates or not for purposes of complying with Regulation SHO.518 However, this 

approach could result in different entities using different levels for short position calculations 

making these positions more difficult to compare. 

Foreign jurisdictions that specify the calculation level typically define that level by 

reference to either the decision maker or the legal entity.”519 In Australia520 and Hong Kong,521 for 

example, aggregation and reporting is by legal entity. In the European Union,522 by contrast, 

aggregation and reporting may be by either a natural or legal person (whether a person or an 

investment committee). It is possible for the legal entity to be the same as the decision maker.523 

E. Reporting to FINRA and the Commission Only

In addition to the potential public disclosure regimes discussed above,524 Section 

417(a)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act also directs a study of the real-time disclosure of short 

positions to FINRA and the Commission only.525 The analysis below focuses on a regime in 

which FINRA and the Commission would receive short sale position reports that identify short 

sellers. While the analysis below could relate to either cash positions or economic exposure, the 

its trading objective(s), and supports its independent identity; (2) each aggregation unit within the firm determines at 

the time of each sale its net position for every security that it trades; (3) all traders in an aggregation unit pursue only 

the trading objectives or strategy(ies) of that aggregation unit; and (4) individual traders are assigned to only one 

aggregation unit at any time. 

518 Some commenters noted that moving away from the aggregation unit concept would require changes and incur 

costs. See, e.g., letters from SIFMA; and FIF.
 519 See infra Appendix C, Table C.1 for a summary of how foreign jurisdictions specify the calculation level. 520 See Regulatory Guide 196, supra note 164, RG 196.119, 196.152-54 (Australia).
 521 See Hong Kong Consultation Conclusions, supra note 181, item 37.
 522 See E.U. Regulation No. 236/2012, supra note 160, Article (7)(c). 523 For example, the legal entity and investment decision maker would be the same if a trust had one investment
 

committee.
 524 See supra Sections V.A –V.D. 525 Commenters that generally opposed new short sale position disclosure requirements appeared to be less opposed
 

to reporting to regulators only. See letters from MFA; Data Explorers; ICI; FIF; CPIC; AIMA; and STANY.
 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 108 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

Division believes that short positions at the decision maker level would be the most useful for 

surveillance and investigative purposes and are therefore the type of positions discussed below. 

In particular, those making investment decisions are likely to be the ones in a position to commit 

market abuse, so seeing the positions they manage would be more informative for regulatory 

purposes than alternative calculation levels. The Division also stresses that the analysis below 

assumes threshold short sale position reporting that balances the need to detect manipulation and 

fraud against resource constraints.526 Finally, the Division notes that Section 417(a)(2)(A) of the 

Dodd-Frank Act specifies disclosure to the Commission and FINRA only, and not to other 

regulators such as exchanges (which, along with FINRA, are self-regulatory organizations) or 

other national or international regulators. 

The Division believes that the benefits of Real-Time Short Position Reporting to FINRA 

and the Commission only are likely to be modest. Specifically, the CAT, if the Commission 

approves the NMS Plan, would provide regulators with almost the same information as RealTime Short Position Reporting although it would be less timely. However, the Division believes 

that implementation and compliance costs of Real-Time Short Position Reporting would likely 

be significant. 

1. Comparison of the Current and Potential Future Data

Relative to currently available data, identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting would 

provide to the Commission and FINRA readily available information on the short seller and 

would better enable them to track individual short sellers’ positions and changes in those 

positions. Information on the short seller’s identity and the time and place of execution would 

assist regulators in more quickly uncovering insider trading, and in distinguishing a drop in 

526 See discussion in Section V.B.7. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 109 
 

 

prices that was driven by fundamentals from one that was due to manipulation. In addition, 

identified information with regard to short sale positions would help identify traders with a 

motive for causing a drop in prices.527 

Relative to currently available data, identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting could 

be of great help to the Commission and FINRA in facilitating investigations, monitoring and 

surveillance. The Commission and FINRA currently utilize, among other things, SRO referrals, 

tips, and complaints to identify abusive traders, and then go through a process of obtaining the 

necessary information to evaluate whether violations of the securities laws, including 

manipulation, have occurred. Having this information available more promptly, without having 

to obtain it on a case-by-case basis, would allow the Commission and FINRA to monitor markets 

more easily. This would enable them to identify suspicious activity more quickly and effectively, 

potentially increasing the number of leads that could result in investigations of illegal behavior. 

However, any such system would be to some extent limited because it would only trace market 

manipulations after the trader had taken a short position. 

However, the Division does not believe that Real-Time Short Position Reporting to the 

Commission and FINRA will achieve significant benefits beyond those anticipated from the 

CAT. As noted above,528 CAT could provide information to regulators on the identities of short 

sellers and regulators could process CAT data to estimate short sale positions. The Real-Time 

Short Position Reporting data would be more timely and precise, but the benefits of regulatory 

use of more timely data than CAT likely would be limited. 

527 See supra note 403 and accompanying text. 528 See supra Section III.B.1. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 110 
	 	 	 	 	

 

2. Economic Benefits and Costs

The alternative of reporting short sale positions only to the Commission and FINRA 

would avoid the adverse effects on market quality and capital formation of public reporting 

described above.529 Importantly, a non-public reporting regime would be less likely to affect nonabusive short sellers, meaning such a regime would not discourage the fundamental research that 

promotes price efficiency, in contrast to a publicly-identified regime, as discussed above.530 Also, 

such information could not facilitate market manipulation or increase suboptimal trading 

decisions because the information would not be made public. 

Not making Real-Time Short Position data public would reduce the benefits relative to 

publicly-identified Real-Time Short Position Reporting, because market participants would not 

realize the enhancements to market quality and capital formation that would flow from the public 

availability. The potential benefits to capital formation that could follow from better monitoring 

and surveillance, however, may still apply. Relative to currently available data,531 disclosure to 

the Commission and FINRA would allow the Commission and FINRA to better detect, 

investigate, and bring actions related to fraud and manipulation, and should help to better deter 

abusive short selling. Real-Time Short Position Reporting to the Commission and FINRA would 

not allow members of the public to monitor for market manipulation and other abusive short 

selling, however. This drawback might not be a serious one. Few market participants have the 

necessary resources to examine such data for market manipulations and therefore many must rely 

on regulators for monitoring and surveillance. 

529 See supra Section V.A.4.
 530 See supra Sections V.A.4 and V.B.3.
 531 As noted above, the benefits relative to CAT would be lower because the Real-Time Short Position Reporting
 

would provide little information additional to what is in CAT. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 111 
	 	 	 	

	 	 	 	 	 	 

 

3. Feasibility and Compliance Costs

The Division concludes that the compliance costs of Real-Time Short Position Reporting 

to the Commission and FINRA only are likely to be substantial. The implementation and 

compliance costs of reporting to the Commission and FINRA only would likely be identical to 

those of public reporting. In addition, as noted above,532 regulators may not be able to 

significantly improve their regulatory investigations using data from Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting because the CAT, if approved, may provide similar data to Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting, depending upon the particular design of the regime. Finally, the Division notes that, 

reporting the data with a delay would achieve many of the regulatory benefits at potentially 

lower cost because, typically, regulatory investigations (as opposed to surveillance) do not 

require real-time data. 

VI. Disclosure of Both Transactions and Positions

The previous two sections considered the Transaction Marking and Real-Time Short 

Position Reporting regimes in isolation. The Division also considered whether the results would 

change if there were both a Transaction Marking regime and a Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting regime. Because the information produced by the two regimes overlaps, the benefits 

and costs of the combined regimes would not simply be the sum of the benefits of the two 

regimes. In addition, if the regimes require similar infrastructure, then one regime may be less 

costly to implement after the implementation of the other regime. 

After considering the issues, the Division believes that the adoption of both types of 

reporting could magnify some concerns while reducing others. In general, the exact form of any 

532 See generally supra notes 373-374 and accompanying text. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 112 
 

reporting would affect the magnitude of the impact on the benefits and costs of implementing 

both types of reporting. 

Both Transaction Marking and Real-Time Short Position Reporting would reveal 

information about investors and their strategies. Market participants could infer some of the 

information in one regime from the other, so the incremental benefits of one regime would be 

lower in the presence of the other regime. For example, if Real-Time Short Position Reporting 

included aggregated short positions only, information from short position data would largely, 

though not completely, duplicate data from Transaction Marking.533 In other words, market 

participants could use transaction data to estimate changes in aggregated stock positions, even in 

the absence of Real-Time Short Position data. However, combined reporting might amplify 

market quality concerns. Because more information would be public about transactions and short 

positions, it would be easier for some investors to anticipate or copy the actions of other 

investors, even if the reporting regime did not reveal short sellers’ identities. This would increase 

incentives for some short sellers to try to mask their trading to reduce this risk, which would 

make the data more difficult to interpret. 

The particular design chosen for Real-Time Short Position Reporting would substantially 

affect the degree of overlap, though Transaction Marking and Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting would not be perfect substitutes for each other - regardless of their design. If RealTime Short Position Reporting included the reporting of economic exposure, it would provide 

information beyond what Transaction Marking alone would provide. While Transaction Marking 

data would contain important information beyond that resulting from Real-Time Short Position 

533 However, the Division notes that to the extent transaction marks are populated using Reg SHO order marking 

based on positions at order entry, rather than execution, estimating short positions from transaction marks would be 

imprecise and potentially biased. See supra Section III.A.3 and notes 219-220 and accompanying text. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 113 
	 	

Reporting because of the “market maker short” mark, an estimate of aggregated short positions 

from transaction marks would not capture changes in positions resulting from actions in other 

instruments, such as option exercises and assignments. 

The Division does not believe that compliance costs for either type of reporting regime 

would be lower in the presence of the other type of reporting regime. For example, the 

infrastructure changes necessary for short sellers to be able to report their positions in real time 

are likely to be in addition to those required to create and report “buy-to-cover” or “market 

maker short” transaction marks. 

VII. Concluding Remarks

The Division studied the feasibility, benefits, and costs of Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting to the public or only to FINRA and the Commission and the feasibility, benefits, and 

costs of a Transaction Marking Pilot that would add new, short sale-related marks to the 

Consolidated Tape. The Division considered the benefits and costs of Real-Time Short Position 

Reporting and the Transaction Marking Pilot by comparing the information provided by each to 

currently available and potentially forthcoming short sale data. The Division studied the 

feasibility of Real-Time Short Position Reporting and the Transaction Marking Pilot by 

examining the extent to which current systems can be altered to accommodate either short sale 

reporting regime and the cost to do so. 

Overall, the Division concludes that none of these alternatives is likely to be costeffective when compared to the baseline. The Division concludes that the benefits to regulatory 

and public uses of information from Real-Time Short Position Reporting are likely to be modest. 

In particular, the Division believes that Real-Time Short Position Reporting and Transaction 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 114 
 

Marking would provide regulators with little additional information than would already be 

available from the CAT. However, the Division concludes that the implementation and 

compliance costs, which could include updating or building a system to collect short position 

reports, are likely to be significant, even if the information is provided to regulators only. 

Implementing the CAT will enable the Commission to reassess the extent of any additional 

benefits that may be derived from requiring Real-Time Short Position Reporting and Transaction 

Marking, and the costs of any additional infrastructure needed to collect such information. 

Finally, the Division concludes that a voluntary pilot in Transaction Marking is unlikely to be of 

much utility. While this report concludes that the short sale reporting regimes studied are 

unlikely to be cost-effective, the analysis contained in this report should still provide valuable 

insight to potential future rulemaking regarding short sale disclosure. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 115 
	 	 	 	

 

Appendix A: Schedule of Discussions534

January 5, 2011: Short Sellers (Lone Pine Capital LLC, Managed Funds Association, Maverick 

Capital Ltd.) 

January 13, 2011: U.S. SROs (BATS Exchange Inc., Chicago Board Options Exchange, 

Consolidated Tape Association, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, National Stock 

Exchange, NASDAQ, NASDAQomx, NYSE Euronext) 

January 18, 2011: Market Makers in Equities Markets (Bank of America Corporation, Barclays 

PLC, Citadel Investment Group LLC, Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., 

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Knight Capital Group Inc., Securities Industry and Financial Markets 

Association) 

January 21, 2011: Introducing Brokers (Bank of America Corporation, UBS AG, Deutsche Bank 

AG, ConvergEx Group LLC, Morgan Keegan & Company Inc., Sterne Agee Group Inc., 

Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association) 

January 24, 2011: Market Makers in Options Markets (Bank of America Corporation, Citigroup 

Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, 

Susquehanna International Group LLP, Timber Hill LLC, Wolverine Trading LLC) 

January 28, 2011: Short Sellers (AQR Capital Management LLC, Camden Asset Management 

LP, Forward Management LLC, GETCO LLC, Hussman Funds, Kynikos Associates LP) 

January 31, 2011: Institutional and Retail Investors and their Representatives (American 

Association of Individual Investors, Delaware Investments Inc., Dodge and Cox Inc., Invesco 

Ltd., Investment Company Institute, TD Ameritrade) 

February 4, 2011: Data Vendors (Bloomberg LP, Capital IQ Inc., Data Explorers Ltd., FTEN 

Inc., Sandler O’Neill and Partners LP, ShortSqueeze.com, SunGard Data Systems Inc., Thomson 

Reuters Corporation) 

February 7, 2011: Prime Brokers and Clearing Firms (Bank of America Corporation, Goldman 

Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, National Financial Services LLC, Pershing LLC) 

February 11, 2011: Representatives of Issuers (American Bankers Association, Professor Jim 

Angel, Issuer Advisory Group LLC, New York Community Bancorp, Park National Corporation, 

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Zions Bancorporation) 

February 14, 2011: Representatives of Issuers (JP Morgan Relationship Management) 

534 Though views of academics are cited to and mentioned in the report, the Division did not specifically reach out to 

outside academics. 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 116 
 

February 15, 2011: Representatives of Issuers (Overstock.com) 

February 15, 2011: International Regulators (U.K. – Financial Services Authority) 

February 17, 2011: International Regulators (France – Financial Markets Authority)
 

February 22, 2011: International Regulators (Australia – Australian Securities and Investments 

Corporation) 

February 23, 2011: International Regulators (Spain – National Securities Market Commission) 

March 3, 2011: International Regulators (Hong Kong – Securities and Futures Commission) 

March 17, 2011: International Regulators (Germany – Federal Financial Supervisory Authority) 

March 22, 2011: Data Explorers 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 117 
	 	 	 	

 

 

Appendix B: List of Commenters

Name Organization Date 

A., Venkatesh (July 21, 2011) 

Aboo, Romeo K. (May 4, 2011) 

Angel, James J. (June 24, 2011) 

Anonymous (June 8, 2011) 

(June 16, 2011) 

(June 22, 2011) 

Ball, Robert (May 29, 2011) 

Ballaban, Bruce (May 20, 2011) 

Ballard, James (June 6, 2011) 

Bexell, Jay C. (May 10, 2011) 

Big, Arthur (June 11, 2011) 

(June 11, 2011) 

Bird, John (May 6, 2011) 

Blair, Jerry A. (June 28, 2011) 

Blair, Jim (Nov. 15, 2011) 

Bourget, Robert (May 6, 2011) 

Brost, Hans (July 26, 2011) 

Cameron, Alan S. (May 4, 2011) 

Campbell, Robert N. (July 15, 2011) 

Cappone, Mark W. (May 31, 2011) 

Chanos, James Coalition of Private Investment (June 23, 2011) 

Companies 

Chepucavage, Peter J. International Association of Small (June 3, 2011) 

Broker Dealers and Advisors 

Choi, Jennifer S. Investment Adviser Association (June 23, 2011) 

Cobble, George W. (May 6, 2011) 

Crowe, John (May 30, 2011) 

Cruttenden, Walter W. (May 28, 2011) 

Cunningham, William Creative Investment Research Inc. (July 4, 2011) 

Cutler, James (June 10, 2011) 

D., Tom (May 6, 2011) 

Dalton, Kevin (May 10, 2011) 

Dane, Jeff (May 6, 2011) 

Dickey, Jeff (May 12, 2011) 

(July 15, 2011) 

Dinar, Simon (May 31, 2011) 

Donais, Lee R. L.R. Donais Company Inc. (May 8, 2011) 

Dubberley, Mark C. (May 9, 2011) 

Dungca, Jesus G. (May 9, 2011) 

E., Tom (May 28, 2011) 

Eddy, Donald L. (May 28, 2011) 

Edwards, Sally P. (May 10, 2011) 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 118 
 

Engen, Eric (May 4, 2011) 

Equitz, Michael (July 15, 2011) 

Finch, Michael (May 19, 2011) 

Fitzmyers, Jeff (May 7, 2011) 

Friedman, Daniel A. (May 5, 2011) 

Fulford, Forrest (May 9, 2011) 

Gallagher, Doglas K. (May 28, 2011) 

Gamon, Alfredo (May 6, 2011) 

Ganjavi, Reza (May 28, 2011) 

Gensen, John (May 18, 2011) 

Gilbert, Joel H. (July 18, 2011) 

Gish, Thomas E. (May 7, 2011) 

Glaser, Lawrence F. (June 14, 2011) 

Goldenberg, Alan (June 1, 2011) 

Gonzales, David (May 6, 2011) 

Gorka, Thomas A. (June 17, 2011) 

Grimley, John J. (Oct. 13, 2011) 

Grothe, Robert (May 10, 2011) 

Gushurst, Jordan (May 30, 2011) 

Haftel, Howard B. (May 4, 2011) 

Hamburg, Mark W. (May 6, 2011) 

Hamlet, Naphtali M. (May 6, 2011) 

Hammerman, Ira D. SIFMA (June 23, 2011) 

Harris, Eugene F. (May 6, 2011) 

Hart, David (June 17, 2011) 

Hearne, Laura H. (May 6, 2011) 

Hempleman, Camilla (May 12, 2011) 

Henderson, James (June 20, 2011) 

Herr, Don (May 29, 2011) 

Holloway, Steven (Sept. 22, 2011) 

Horeis, Thomas K. (June 20, 2011) 

Jacob, Gary M. (May 19, 2011) 

(May 28, 2011) 

Jakala, Henry (June 22, 2011) 

James, William H. Residential Bancorp (May 9, 2011) 

Jasper, Lynn C. (May 27, 2011) 

Jenkins, Robert H. 47 Degrees North Ventures (July 9, 2011) 

Johnson, Jonathan E. Overstock.com (May 19, 2011) 

(June 2, 2011) 

Jones, Charles M. (with (June 23, 2011) 

Reed, Adam V. and 

Waller, William) 

Kaswell, Stuart J. Managed Funds Association (June 22, 2011) 

Kimmel, Manisha Financial Information Forum (June 23, 2011) 

King, Linda A. (May 7, 2011) 

Kochhar, Bobby (July 15, 2011) 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 119 
Krol, Jiri 

Lambrechts, Christine 

Lee, Chuck 

Lesser, Michael F. 

Lieberman, Gary M. 

Liming, Calvin J. 

Lukomnik, Jon 

Lyons, John B. 

Mac, Mark A. 

Mahal, Jaspal S. 

Mahalawat, Sanjeev 

Maltby, William L. 

Mass, Arnold M. 

Massie, Frank D. 

Mathisen, John H. 

McDonald, Bruce H. 

McGee, Jack R. 

McGinness, Janet L. 

McLeod, George 

McMillan, Karrie 

McMorrow, Frank C. 

McNamee, Harry T. 

Meixler, Peter E. 

Miller, Peter A. 

Morgan, Jeffrey D. 

Morrill, Daniel 

Moskowitz, Neil 

Murphy, Thomas 

Nappu, Joe 

Nierode, John A. 

Nixon, Dennis 

Nuallain, Ruairi O. 

Olney, Casey E. 

Orlander, Arnold 

Overholt, Kevin 

Parker, Blaine L. 

Phillip, Lord M. 

Polege, Karen 

Prescott, Sally E. 

Reichold, Jane M. 

Rentzsch, Kevin 

Alternative Investment Management (June 23, 2011) 

Association Ltd. 

(May 6, 2011) 

(July 16, 2011) 

(July 15, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

(June 6, 2011) 

IRRC Institute (May 9, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

(May 7, 2011) 

(May 5, 2011) 

(July 17, 2011) 

(May 9, 2011) 

(May 28, 2011) 

(May 5, 2011) 

(May 31, 2011) 

(June 25, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

NYSE Euronext (October 1, 2010) 

(June 21, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

Investment Company Institute (June 23, 2011) 

(July 17, 2011) 

(May 24, 2011) 

(May 7, 2011) 

(June 17, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

National Investor Relations Institute (June 21, 2011) 

(May 12, 2011) 

(May 8, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

(June 14, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

International Bancshares Corporation (July 18, 2011) 

Battle for Trademarks, Ltd. (May 6, 2011) 

(May 18, 2011) 

(May 7, 2011) 

(June 14, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

(May 19, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

(Sept. 22, 2011) 

(May 17, 2011) 

(May 24, 2011) 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 120 
Rogers, Wayne 

Roodt, Nico 

Rulewicz, Richard 

S., Al 

Sage, Larry 

Sargent, Jan 

Saunders, V. 

Schatz, John 

Schweitzer, Ed 

Scilla, Joseph A. 

Scott, John J. 

Scott, Judith 

Semifero, Joe 

Shatto, Suzanne H. 

Singbush, Murray N. 

Sleesman, Norman L. 

Slonecker, Troy 

Smith, Donal 

Smith, John 

Sumn, L.A. 

Sung, Ho C. 

Sutcliffe, Brian 

Swallow, Phillip S. 

Swann, Roberta 

Taillefer, Michael 

Taylor, E.A. 

Tecca, Robert 

Teepe, Shelley 

Trzecki, Ken 

Unger, Kimberly 

Unruh, Sean 

Vance, H. Eugene 

Voight, Mick 

Wetzel, Scott 

Wilbur, Scott E. 

Williams, Raymond E. 

Wilson, Kelly D. 

Witmer, Daniel 

Wong, Victor Y. 

Wynegar, Samuel E. 

Yagami, Iwao 

Yost, Lawrence A. 

Zarouri, Mourad 

(July 15, 2011) 

(May 28, 2011) 

(May 8, 2011) 

(June 10, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

(June 18, 2011) 

(June 1, 2011) 

(May 9, 2011) 

(May 9, 2011) 

Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. (June 24, 2011) 

(May 8, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

(May 7, 2011) 

(May 28, 2011) 

(May 8, 2011) 

Data Explorers, Inc. (June 23, 2011) 

(May 5, 2011) 

(June 10, 2011) 

(Sept. 22, 2011) 

(May 9, 2011) 

(May 9, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

(June 20, 2011) 

(June 24, 2011) 

(May 12, 2011) 

(May 4, 2011) 

(May 29, 2011) 

Security Traders Association of New (July 5, 2011) 

York, Inc. 

(June 8, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

(May 17, 2011) 

(May 13, 2011) 

(May 6, 2011) 

(May 28, 2011) 

(May 9, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

(May 20, 2011) 

(Nov. 15, 2011) 

(June 12, 2011) 

(July 6, 2011) 

(May 10, 2011) 

Prepared by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis 121 
Appendix C: Related Regulations in Certain Foreign Jurisdictions

Table C.1: Short Sale Position Reporting Regimes

Jurisdiction 

Scope of Short Position Reporting Process 

Financial 

Instruments 

Included 

Threshold for Reporting 

To 

Regulators To Public 

How 

Calculated 

Obligation to 

Report535 

To 

Regulators 

For Public Dissemi

Mechanism 

and 

Deadline Format 

M

D

Australia 

(ASIC)536 

Cash (all listed securities/ products)537 

More than $100,000 and 0.01% 

--- Positions at 

7PM; % of total product outstanding 

Short seller (legal entity)538 

FIX connection to ASIC; Within 3 trading days 

Aggregated by product 

ASweFoaft

Canada Cash --- --- Total short Brokers542 Email to Aggregated by TS

(IIROC)539 (including 

convertibles or exchangeable securities)540 

positions of each individual account541

TSX; Within 2 trading days; twice per month543 

stock (top 20 largest short positions)544 

CNwe

535 For purposes of this table, where reporting is by the legal entity, positions are aggregated and reported at levels identified as separat

by the decision maker takes place when the person or committee making the investment decision aggregates and reports its positions. S

Section V.D.

536 See Regulatory Guide 196 (Australia), supra note 164; Corporations Regulations 2001 (Cth), supra note 182, reg 7.9.99(2) (Australi537 See Corporations Regulations 2001 (Cth), supra note 182, reg 7.9.99(2) (Australia), which requires reporting of short positions in “s

Section 1020B products are defined in the Australian Corporations Act to include securities, managed investment products, and sovereibonds. See Corporations Act 2001 (2005) (Cth) s1020B (Australia) 

538 See Regulatory Guide 196 (Australia), supra note 164, RG 196.119, 196.152-54.539 See Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), Universal Market Integrity Rules (hereinafter UMIR), Rule 1

available at http://www.iiroc.ca/industry/rulebook/documents/UMIR1010_en.pdf ; IIROC, Rules Notice - Provisions Respecting Regul
Failed Trades No. 11-0075 (Feb. 25, 2011) (Canada), available at 

http://docs.iiroc.ca/DisplayDocument.aspx?DocumentID=14604580516B48F88A0BCFA629781242&Language=en. 540 See UMIR Part 1.1.541 See UMIR Rule 10.10(1). 542 See UMIR Rules 10.10(3) and accompanying guidance and UMIR Rule 1.1.543 See UMIR Rule 10.10(3). 544 See Toronto Stock Exchange, Top 20 Largest Consolidated Short Position Report, available at 

http://www.tmx.com/en/news_events/exchange_bulletins/bulletins/12-31-2012_TSX-ShortReportDec31-12.html. 

545 See UMIR Rule 10.10; UMIR Market Integrity Notice 2007-022 (Oct. 29, 2007), available at 

http://www.iiroc.ca/industry/rulebook/Documents/UMIR1010_en.pdf. 
Jurisdiction 

Scope of Short Position Reporting Process 

Financial 

Instruments 

Included 

Threshold for Reporting 

To 

Regulators To Public 

How 

Calculated 

Obligation to 

Report535 

To 

Regulators 

For Public Dissemi

Mechanism 

and 

Deadline Format 

M

D

E.U. 

(ESMA)546 

Cash,Derivati ves,547 Securities, including indexes, ETFs548 

0.2% initially, 0.1% up and down increments thereafter 549 

0.5% initially, 0.1% up and down increments thereafter 

End of day (12 a.m.) positions; Percentage of total issued share capital550 

Short seller (natural or legal person); Market makers are exempt551 

Nonstandardized across E.U. states; By 3:30p.m. of the next trading day 

Individual, Identified 

By of tra

546 On March 16, 2012, the European Parliament enacted Regulation No. 236/2012, referred to as “the SSR”. See Regulation No. 236/2

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:086:0001:0024:en:PDF. The SSR replaced the temporary measures 

30 European Economic Area (EEA) nations. The SSR went into effect on November 1, 2012. Individual exchanges may have additionainfra Table C.2. 

547 The SSR contemplates that short positions include all financial transactions that create economic exposure to an issue. See E.U. Reg

supra note 166, Article 3. 

548 The short sale of an ETF security does not have to be reported, however, investors must incorporate these positions into their calcula

to a given security. ESMA, Questions and Answers, Implementation of the Regulation on short selling and certain aspects of credit defa7 (January 30, 2013), available at http://www.esma.europa.eu/page/Short-selling-documents. 

549 These notification thresholds do not apply to short positions in sovereign debt, which under the SSR, are calculated separately by ES

inter alia, the total amount of outstanding debt issued by the sovereign and the liquidity of each sovereign bond market) and published E.U. Regulation No. 236/2012, supra note 160, Article 7(2); ESMA, Net Short Notification Thresholds for Sovereign Issuers, available http://www.esma.europa.eu/page/Net-short-position-notification-thresholds-sovereign-issuers.http://www.esma.europa.eu/page/Net-shothresholds-sovereign-issuers

550 While the SSR does not specifically provide for a delta-adjustment, follow up commentary by ESMA has explained that adjusting fo

certain situations. See id. at 13, 14. 

551 For more information on the market maker exemption, see ESMA, Final Report. Guidelines on the exemption for market making ac

market operations under Regulation (EU) 236/2012 of the European Parliament and the Council on short selling and certain aspects of (February 1, 2013), available at http://www.esma.europa.eu/system/files/2013-158.pdf. 
Jurisdiction 

Scope of Short Position Reporting Process 

Financial 

Instruments 

Included 

Threshold for Reporting 

To 

Regulators To Public 

How 

Calculated 

Obligation to 

Report535 

To 

Regulators 

For Public Dissemi

Mechanism 

and 

Deadline Format 

M

D

Hong Kong 

(SFC)552 

Cash At least 

HK$30 million or 0.02% 

--- End of last 

trading day of week positions553; 

% of total stock outstanding 

Short seller (legal entity) 

To SFC via e-portal ; By 2nd trading day of following week 

Aggregated by security 

SFweFivbuday

Japan 

(FSA)554 

Cash, Derivatives 

0.20% 0.50% % of issued 

stock 

Short seller Brokerdealers Aggregated by security and 

identified by sector 

Exwe

552 See Hong Kong Securities and Futures Ordinance, Ch. 571AJ, Securities and Futures (Short Position Reporting) Rules (effective Jun

http://www.legislation.gov.hk/eng/home.htm; Hong Kong Securities Futures Commission, Short Position Reporting - Frequently Asked 2012), available at http://www.sfc.hk/web/doc/EN/research/short-position-reporting/FAQs_on_SPR_EN_20%20June%202012.pdf; Gu

Position Reporting (June 1, 2012), available at http://en-rules.sfc.hk/net_file_store/new_rulebooks/h/k/HKSFC3527_4242_VER10.pdf

553 Note that Hong Kong’s short sale rules provide that the Securities and Futures Commission may require daily position reporting in e

Hong Kong Securities and Futures Ordinance, Ch. 571AJ, Rule 7. 

554 See FSA Japan Proposed Short Sale Disclosure and FSA Japan Short Sale Disclosure Threshold , supra note 165, at 1; see also Toky

Revision of Methods for Short Selling Position Reporting and Disclosure (Sept. 4, 2013), available at http://www.tse.or.jp/english/market/report/b7gje6000001iz9y-att/guideline_for_short_position_reporting_en.pdf. 
Table C.2: Short Marking Regimes

Jurisdiction Requirement to Mark Marks Included Reporting Orders v. Transactions Where Marks are Reported Timing of Reporting Dissemination t

Market 

Australia (ASIC)555 

Short seller via broker 

Long sale, short sale 

Transactions Market 

operator 

Report by 9a.m. next day capturing all short sales executed up to 7p.m. 

Market operator aggregates, made puon day of reporting 

Canada (IIROC)557 

Holder via broker 

Short sale, short exempt558 

Orders Market 

Regulator (regulation services provider) 

Real time (at or before 6p.m. of trade date) 

Bimonthly transactisummaries 

555 See Regulatory Guide 196 (Australia), supra note 164; ASIC Press Release, Requirements for disclosure and reporting of short sales 

ASIC, 08-211, (Oct. 28, 2008), available at http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byheadline/08­211+Requirements+for+disclosure+and+reporting+of+short+sales+from+19+November+2008?openDocument.

556 See Regulatory Guide 196 (Australia), supra note 164, at 196.63.557 See generally IIROC, Provisions Respecting Regulation of Short Sales and Failed Trades, No. 11-0075 (Feb. 25, 2011), available at 

http://docs.iiroc.ca/DisplayDocument.aspx?DocumentID=14604580516B48F88A0BCFA629781242&Language=en; Ontario Secs. Com

23-101 - Trading Rules, Part 11.2, available at http://www.iiroc.ca/industry/Documents/NationalInstrument23101_en.pdf; IIROC, RuleComments, Proposed Guidance on 'Short Sale' and 'Short-Marking Exempt' Order Designations, No. 11-0076 (Feb. 25, 2011) available 

http://docs.iiroc.ca/DisplayDocument.aspx?DocumentID=09B964F0FD814123AD04640B2F04A012&Language=en. 

558 The short exempt mark is used for purchases and sales occurring in the execution of “directionally neutral” trading strategies such a

market makers and certain arbitrage accounts. See IIROC, Rules Notice - Provisions Respecting Regulation of Short Sales and Failed T2, 2012), available at http://docs.iiroc.ca/DisplayDocument.aspx?DocumentID=7026F16880C345EAA63555B8802DBBAF&Languag
Jurisdiction Requirement to Mark Marks Included Reporting Orders v. Transactions Where Marks are Reported Timing of Reporting Dissemination t

Market 

Hong Kong (SFC)560 

Short seller via broker 

Sell (long, short) (some marks for participants, including market maker) 

 Orders HKEx Real time Aggregated short 

selling turnover by stock published on HKEx website twice daily561 

Poland (KNF)562

 Broker Short Transactions Warsaw Stock 

Exchange 

Real time Short sale transactio

and cumulative voluand value of trading short sale transactio(published immediaafter trading session

559 See id., Provision 1.6.560 See Hong Kong Exchange Rules, Eleventh Schedule, Rule 5; Hong Kong Securities and Futures Ordinance, Part VII Restriction on 

Sections 170 (Short Selling Restricted), 171 (Requirements to confirm short selling order), 172 (Requirements to Disclose Short Sales)

by Commission of the Securities and Futures Ordinance. There were 581 securities eligible to be sold short as of November 28, 2012. S

Eligible for Short Selling, available at http://www.hkex.com.hk/eng/market/sec_tradinfo/alphabetic.htm. For list of exceptions, see HKSelling (Jun. 28, 2010), available at http://www.hkex.com.hk/eng/market/sec_tradinfo/regshortsell.htm 

561 See Hong Kong Exchange, Short Selling Turnover Today, available at http://www.hkex.com.hk/eng/stat/smstat/ssturnover/sstoday.h562 See Warsaw Stock Exchange Rules, § 107, § 171a, supra note 185; Act on Trading in Financial Instruments, supra note 185; Detaile

Rules, supra note 185.;WSE Detailed Exchange Trading Rules Short Sale §20, supra note 185. 

563 Aggregate data is available at http://www.gpw.pl/krotka_sprzedaz_pelna_wersja_en.
Jurisdiction Requirement to Mark Marks Included Reporting Orders v. Transactions Where Marks are Reported Timing of Reporting Dissemination t

Market 

Singapore564 Short seller via 

broker565

 Short Sale Orders Singapore 

Exchange 

Start of next 

trading day

 Aggregated shor

selling informatio

from the previou

trading day 

564 See Monetary Authority of Singapore, Guidelines on Short Selling Disclosure, SFA 15-G02 (Jan. 9, 2013) available at 

http://www.mas.gov.sg/~/media/MAS/Regulations%20and%20Financial%20Stability/Regulations%20Guidance%20and%20Licensing0and%20Fund%20Management/MIS%20Regs/SFA%20Guidelines%20on%20Short%20Selling%20Disclosure%20%209%20January%Singapore Exchange Limited, Frequently Asked Questions, Marking of Sell Orders, available at http://www.sgx.com/wps/portal/sgxweb/home/faqs#Marking_of_SellOrders . 

565 Market participants must disclose whether a sell order is a short sale to the broker executing the trade. The broker is then required to 

data to the Singapore Exchange (SGX), which publishes aggregated data including sales volume and value. See Singapore Exchange Li

Questions, Marking of Sell Orders, supra note 543. 
	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

 

Appendix D: Certain Short Sale‐Related Regulatory Actions

1934 Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Section 10(a) grants the Commission authority 

to regulate short sales of securities registered on a national securities exchange, as 

necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.566 

1935 Exchange Act Release No. 179. The Commission requests that the national 

securities exchanges adopt certain rules for the regulation of trading on 

exchanges, including a uniform short selling rule forbidding a member from 

effecting a short sale of a security at a price below the last sale price of such 

security on the exchange. 

1935 Exchanges adopt general rules prohibiting all sales which have the effect of 

“demoralizing” the market, including a short sale below the previous sale.567 

1938 Exchange Act Release No. 1548. The Commission adopts rules to define a short 

sale as the sale of a security which the seller does not own or any sale which is 

consummated by the delivery of a borrowed security; to require that any short sale 

must be made at a price above the price at which the last transaction in the 

security took place; and to require that every order for the sale of a security on a 

national securities exchange must be marked either “long” or “short.” 

1939 Exchange Act Release No. 2039. The Commission modifies its rules governing 

short selling on national securities exchanges to permit short sales at the same 

price as the last sale, provided that the last sale price was higher than the last 

different price which preceded it. 

1963 Report of Special Study of Securities Markets of the Securities and Exchange 

Commission.568 The Commission issues the report of the staff of the Special 

Study of Securities Markets, identifying three objectives of the uptick rule: 

 Allow relatively unrestricted short sales in an advancing market; 

 Prevent short selling at successively lower prices, thus eliminating short 

selling as a tool for driving the market down; and 

 Prevent short sellers from accelerating a declining market by exhausting all 

remaining bids at one price level, causing successively lower prices to be 

established by long sellers.569 

566 Section 10(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, 15 U.S.C. 78j(a). 567 See Exchange Act Release No. 13091 (Dec. 21, 1976), 41 FR 56530, n. 2 (Dec. 28, 1976); COMM. OF 

INTERSTATE & FOREIGN COMMERCE, REPORT OF SPECIAL STUDY OF SECURITIES MARKETS OF THE 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, (Part 2), H.R. REP. NO. 88-95, at 251 (1963).) (“1963
 

SPECIAL STUDY”). 568 1963 SPECIAL STUDY, supra note 567. 

569 Id. at 251. 

129 
 

 

1976 Exchange Act Release No. 13091. The Commission proposes three alternative 

temporary rules that would suspend in part, to varying degrees, the operation of 

the “tick” test provisions of Rule 10a-1. 

1980 Exchange Act Release No. 17347. In response to the 1976 proposals, several 

market participants, including the NYSE, generally indicate that the “tick” test 

provisions of Rule 10a-1 continue to be appropriate for the protection of investors 

and should not be modified. The Commission withdraws the proposals. 

1986 Short Sale Regulation of NASDAQ Securities. A study, conducted by former 

SEC Commissioner Irving Pollack and commissioned by the NASD, reports on 

short selling practices in the OTC securities market.570 

1986 Exchange Act Release No. 23572. The Commission approves an NASD rule 

filing that provides for additional regulation of short selling in the over-thecounter market via requirements that NASD members mark customer order 

tickets as “long” or “short,” and when accepting a “short” sale order from a 

customer, make an affirmative determination that the member will receive 

delivery of the security from the customer or that it can borrow the security on 

behalf of the customer for delivery by settlement date.571 

1988 Exchange Act Release No. 26028. The Commission adopts Rule 10b-21(T), 

prohibiting a person who effects a short sale of an equity security between the 

filing of a registration statement and the time at which sales of such equity 

security may be commenced from covering the short sale with offered securities 

purchased from an underwriter or other broker or dealer participating in the 

offering. 

1991 Exchange Act Release No. 29278. The Commission issues a Concept Release on 

Public Disclosure of Material Short Security Positions in connection with a 

rulemaking request received by the Commission from the Association of Publicly 

Traded Companies. The Concept Release solicits public comment on whether the 

Commission should require public reporting of material short security positions in 

publicly traded companies in a manner analogous to the then current reporting 

requirement for material long security positions. 

570 See POLLACK, supra note 75. 571 See also NASD Notice 86-69, Amendments to NASD Rules on Short Sales Become Effective October 15, 

1986. (Oct. 10, 1986). 

130 
 

 

 

1991 Short Selling Activity in the Stock Market: Market Effects and the Need for 

Regulation (Part 1), House Report No. 102-414.572 A House Report submitted by 

the Committee on Government Operations discusses several aspects of short 

selling, including the tick test. The report suggests that short selling has negative 

price effects that “can have important and lasting consequences” and asserts that 

the tick test is “effective in stabilizing the market for exchange-listed stocks for 

the benefit of issuers and investors.”573 The report also recommends that the tick 

test be extended to the NASDAQ market.574 

1994 Exchange Act Release No. 34277. The Commission approves NASD Rule 3350 

(the “bid test”) as a temporary rule prohibiting NASD members from effecting a 

short sale in a security at or below the current inside bid when this bid is below 

the preceding best bid. This prohibition applied equally to trades for customers 

and to trades for the member’s own account. The rule provided certain 

exemptions, including an exemption for qualified Nasdaq market makers, options 

market makers, and warrant market makers. The rule also provided exemptions 

similar to those provided under the tick test of Rule 10a–1. 

1999 Exchange Act Release No. 42037. The Commission issues a concept release, 

requesting comment on the regulation of short sales of securities, including, 

among other things, eliminating the tick test of Rule 10a-1. 

2003 Exchange Act Release No. 48709. The Commission proposes Regulation SHO 

(“Reg SHO”), which would: replace Rules 3b-3, 10a-1, and 10a-2; require short 

sellers in all equity securities to locate securities to borrow before selling; impose 

strict delivery requirements on securities where many sellers have failed to deliver 

the securities; and also institute a new uniform bid test allowing short sales to be 

effected at a price one cent above the consolidated best bid. 

2004 Exchange Act Release No. 50103. The Commission adopts Reg SHO, which 

requires short sellers in all equity securities to locate securities to borrow before 

selling, and also imposes additional delivery requirements on broker-dealers for 

securities in which a substantial number of failures to deliver have occurred. The 

Commission also adopts a temporary rule that establishes procedures for the 

Commission to suspend temporarily the operation of the tick test and any short 

sale price test of any exchange or national securities association, for specified 

securities, to evaluate the overall effectiveness of such restrictions, and permit the 

collection of data on the impact of short selling in the absence of a price test. 

572 COMM. ON GOV’T OPERATIONS, SHORT-SELLING ACTIVITY IN THE STOCK MARKET: MARKET EFFECTS 

AND THE NEED FOR REGULATION (Part 1), H.R. REP. NO. 102-414 (1991), reprinted in Fed. Sec. L. Rep.
 

(CCH) Number 1483 Part II (1992). 

573 Id. at 15. 574 Id.
 

131 
 

 

 

2006 Exchange Act Release No. 53128. The Commission approves the Nasdaq Stock 

Market LLC’s application to become a registered national securities exchange. 

The Commission grants a temporary exemption from Rule 10a-1 to permit 

Nasdaq to apply the bid test under Nasdaq Exchange Rule 3350 to short sales in 

Nasdaq National Market securities occurring on the Nasdaq Exchange. 

2006 Exchange Act Release No. 54891. The Commission proposes to remove the tick 

test of Rule 10a-1 and add Rule 201 of Reg SHO to provide that no price test, 

including any price test of any SRO, shall apply to short sales in any security and 

to prohibit any SRO from having a price test. 

2007 Exchange Act Release No. 55970. The Commission removes the tick test of Rule 

10a-1 and adds Rule 201 of Reg SHO to provide that no price test, including any 

price test by any SRO, shall apply to short selling in any security and to prohibit 

any SRO from having a price test. 

2007 Exchange Act Release No. 56212. The Commission amends Reg SHO to further 

reduce the number of persistent fails to deliver in certain equity securities by 

eliminating the grandfather provision, an exception to the mandatory close out 

requirement of Reg SHO. 

2008 July – Exchange Act Release No. 58166.575 The Commission issues an emergency 

order requiring all persons to borrow or arrange to borrow the securities of 

substantial financial firms identified in Appendix A to the emergency order prior 

to effecting an order for a short sale of those securities. This pre-borrow 

requirement expired August 12, 2008. 

2008 September – Exchange Act Release No. 58592.576 The Commission issues an 

emergency order temporarily prohibiting any person from effecting a short sale in 

the publicly traded securities of certain financial firms identified in Appendix A to 

the emergency order. This prohibition expired on October 8, 2008. 

575 See Exchange Act Release No. 58166 (July 15, 2008), 73 FR 42379 (July 21, 2008); see also Exchange 

Act Release No. 58190 (July 18, 2008), 73 FR 42837 (July 23, 2008); Exchange Act Release No. 58248 

(July 29, 2008), 73 FR 45257 (Aug. 4, 2008). 

576 See Exchange Act Release No. 58592 (Sept. 18, 2008), 73 FR 55169 (Sept. 24, 2008); see also 

Exchange Act Release No. 58611 (Sept. 21, 2008), 73 FR 55556 (Sept. 25, 2008); Exchange Act Release 

No. 58723 (Oct. 2, 2008), 73 FR 58994 (Oct. 8, 2008). 

132 
 

 

 

 

 

 

2008 September – Exchange Act Release No. 58572.577 The Commission makes 

immediately effective amendments to Reg SHO that eliminate the options market 

maker exception from Regulation SHO’s close-out requirement;578 makes 

immediately effective Rule 10b-21, a “naked” short selling antifraud rule;579 and 

adds and makes immediately effective a temporary rule to Reg SHO, Rule 204T, 

which generally requires that participants of a registered clearing agency close out 

fail to deliver positions at a registered clearing agency in any equity security for a 

sale transaction in that equity security by no later than the beginning of trading on 

the next settlement day after a fail to deliver resulting from a short sale (generally 

T+4), and no later than the beginning of trading on the third settlement day after a 

fail to deliver resulting from a long sale or a sale resulting from bona fide market 

making activities at the time of the sale (generally T+6). A close out is effected by 

purchasing or borrowing shares of like kind and quantity.580 

2008 September and October – Exchange Act Release Nos. 58591, 58591A, 58724 and 

58785.581 The Commission issues a series of emergency orders and adopts an 

interim final temporary rule requiring disclosure of short positions on Form SH by 

institutional investment managers exercising investment discretion with respect to 

accounts holding section 13(f) securities having an aggregate fair market value of 

at least $100 million. That disclosure requirement expired on August 1, 2009. 

2009 Exchange Act Release No. 60388. The Commission adopts a permanent version 

of Rule 204T of Reg SHO, Rule 204. 

2010 Exchange Act Release No. 61595. The Commission adopts Rule 201, which 

implements a short sale-related circuit breaker that, if triggered, imposes a 

restriction on the prices at which securities may be sold short such that short 

selling will be permitted only at a price above the current national best bid. 

577 See Exchange Act Release No. 58572 (Sept. 17, 2008), 73 FR 54875 (Sept. 23, 2008). 578 See also Exchange Act Release No. 58775, 73 FR at 61690. 579 See also Exchange Act Release No. 58774 (Oct. 14, 2008), 73 FR 61666 (Oct. 17, 2008). 580 See also Exchange Act Release No. 58773 (Oct. 14, 2008), 73 FR 61706 (Oct. 17, 2008). 581 See Exchange Act Release No. 58591 (Sept. 18, 2008), 73 FR 55175 (Sept. 24, 2008); Exchange Act 

Release No. 58591A (Sept. 21, 2008), 73 FR 55557 (Sept. 25, 2008); Exchange Act Release No. 58724
 

(Oct. 2, 2008), 73 FR 58987 (Oct. 8, 2008); Exchange Act Release No. 58785 (Oct. 15, 2008), 73 FR 

61678 (Oct. 17, 2008). 

133 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	

	 	 	

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix E: Evidence on Short Selling and Market Quality

This Appendix contains a brief description of the academic evidence on the 

impact of short selling on market quality, particularly price efficiency and liquidity. This 

description is not comprehensive but supports the statements made in the body of report 

and the considered views of the Division. 

A. Price Efficiency

Theoretical studies support the notion that short sellers promote price efficiency, 

finding that restrictions on short selling should lead to less accurate prices, higher 

volatility, and should hinder price discovery.582 In particular, prices are unlikely to fully 

reflect the less optimistic views of short sellers or prices will incorporate those views 

more slowly.583 Finance theory also predicts that short sellers tend to be more informed 

than other investors, on average, because the relatively higher costs and risks of short 

selling deter uninformed investors from short selling.584 The empirical evidence generally 

supports these theoretical predictions, finding that short sellers are informed585 and 

promote price discovery,586 while short selling restrictions reduce price efficiency,587 

582 See, e.g., supra notes 59,65 and sources cited therein. 583 See e.g., Douglas W. Diamond & Robert E. Verrecchia, Constraints on Short-Selling and Asset Price 

Adjustment to Private Information, 18 J. FIN. ECON. 277-311 (1987).
 584 See, e.g., id; BODIE, KANE & MARCUS, supra note 28. 585 See, e.g., Charles Jones & Owen A. Lamont, Short Sale Constraints and Stock Returns, 66 J. FIN. ECON. 

207-239 (2002); Boehmer, Jones & Zhang, supra note 303; Diether, Lee & Werner, supra note 76; 

Engelberg, Reed & Ringgenberg, supra note 67; Merritt B. Fox, Lawrence R. Glosten, & Paul C. Tetlock, 

Short Selling and the News: A Preliminary Report on an Empirical Study (Columbia Law and Econ., 

Working Paper No. 364, 2010), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1543855. 586 See, e.g., Ekkehart Boehmer & Julie Wu, Short Selling and the Informational Efficiency of Prices, 

(Working Paper, Aug. 16, 2010), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=972620; Adam V. Reed, Costly Short
 

Selling and Stock Price Adjustment to Earnings Announcements (U.N. C., Kenan-Flager Bus. Sch.,
 

Working Paper, July 2007), available at http://public.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/faculty/reeda/reed.pdf; Pedro
 

Saffi & Kari Sigurdsson, Price Efficiency and Short Selling, 24 REV. FIN. STUDIES 3, 821-852 (2011). 

134 
	 	

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

increase volatility,588 and hinder price discovery.589 However, other empirical studies find 

that uptick-style restrictions do not impede price efficiency.590 

B. Liquidity

The academic literature provides ample theoretical support for, and empirical 

evidence of, the importance of short selling for liquidity. As with market efficiency, some 

of the academic literature on short selling and market liquidity examines the impact of 

constraints on short selling. As noted above, the theoretical literature predicts that short 

selling constraints will keep uninformed short sellers from trading.591 This can increase 

the likelihood that market makers trade with informed investors as opposed to 

uninformed investors thus increasing the adverse selection faced by market makers. 

Theory predicts that market makers widen bid-ask spreads when faced with greater 

adverse selection resulting in less liquidity.592 The empirical evidence shows that strong 

restrictions such as the short selling ban indeed reduce liquidity. The literature on the ban 

587 See, e.g., Jones & Lamont, supra note 585. Owen Lamont & Richard Thaler, Can the Market Add and 

Subtract? Mispricing in Tech Stock Carve-Outs, 111 J. POL. ECON. 227-268 (2003); Arturo Bris, William 

N. Goetzmann & Ning Zhu, Efficiency and the Bear: Short Sales and Markets Around the World, 62(3) J.
 

FIN. 1029-1079 (2007); Eric. C. Chang, Joseph W. Cheng & Yinghui Yu, Short-Sales Constraints and
 

Price Discovery: Evidence from the Hong Kong Market, 62(5) J. FIN. 2097-2121 (2007). 588 See, e.g., Ekkehart Boehmer, Charles M. Jones, & Xiaoyan Zhang, Shackling Short Sellers: The 2008
 

Shorting Ban, (Cornell U., Johnson Sch. of Bus., Res. Paper Series No. 34-09, September 2009); Saffi & 

Sigurdsson supra note 586. There is also evidence that short selling does not exacerbate volatility (see, e.g., 

Boehmer, Jones, & Zhang, supra note 303) and counter evidence that stocks that can be shorted are more 

volatile than when they cannot be shorted (see, e.g., Chang, Cheng, & Yu, supra note 587). 589 See, e.g., Bris, Goetzmann & Zhu, supra note 587; Boehmer & Wu, supra note 586. 590 See, e.g., Boehmer, Jones, & Zhang, supra note 303; Karl B. Diether and Kuan-Hui Lee, It’s SHO Time!
 

Short-sale Price-tests and Market Quality, 64(1) J. FIN. 37-73 (2009).
 591 See supra note 584. 592 See Lawrence R. Glosten & Paul R. Milgrom, Bid, Ask and Transactions Prices in a Specialist Market
 

with Insider Trading, 14 J. FIN. ECON. 71-100 (1985); Albert S. Kyle, Continuous Auctions and Insider 

Trading, 53(6) ECONOMETRICA 1315-1336 (Nov. 1985). 

135 
 

 

 

also provides evidence that market makers account for about 35% of short sales.593 On the 

issue of whether short sellers more generally supply liquidity, the finance literature finds 

that short sellers, on average, are contrarian and that they tend to supply liquidity through 

limit orders more often than other sellers when prices are rising and tend to demand 

liquidity less often when prices are falling.594 

593 Boehmer, Jones, & Zhang (2009) find that short selling dropped 65% during the ban when only market 

makers were allowed to short. See Boehmer, Jones, & Zhang, supra note 303. 594 See AROMI & CAGLIO, supra note 48. 

136 
	 	 	

	 	 	 	 	 	

 

 

Appendix F: Exhibits

Figure F.1: Short Selling Levels: 2005‐2013
 

This figure shows the level of short selling in relation to total volume in shares for data from January 2005 

through November 2013.595 

595 Data Source: See supra notes 116-117. 

137 
	 	 	 	 	

 

 

Figure F.2: Short Interest: 2005‐2013
 

This figure shows the level of short interest in relation to shares outstanding for data from January 2005 

through November 2013.596 

596 Data Source: See supra note 99. 

138 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	

 

Figure F.3: Availability of Shares to Borrow: 1999‐2013
 

This figure provides the total value of stock out on loan and the percentage of the total available for 

securities loans based on survey data collected by the RMA from 1999 through the third quarter of 2013. 

Data is from The Risk Management Association.597 

597 See supra note 94. 

139