First France, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, and the UK followed the US in banning all short-selling of financial stocks. Now other countries are following, including Australia, which took the ban even further over the weekend by announcing that it was banning short selling in all stocks — both financial and non-financial (other than existing hedge positions, which are exempt), according to the Business Spectator.
The WSJ reports today that Taiwan will ban short selling of 150 of the market’s stocks when they trade below the previous session’s closing levels for the two weeks starting Monday, and Dutch regulator Autoriteit Financiële Markten, has already banned “naked short selling” of financial institutions for three months.