Only in Australia you say..

A Bit of info. re Short Selling. Old News

In September of 2008 short selling was seen as a contributing factor to undesirable market volatility and subsequently was prohibited by the SEC for 799 financial companies in an effort to stabilize those companies.

The emergency order temporarily banning short selling of financial stocks will restore equilibrium to markets.

The Commission’s action will apply to the securities of 799 financial companies. The action is immediately effective.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said, "The Commission is committed to using every weapon in its arsenal to combat market manipulation that threatens investors and capital markets.

At the same time the U.K. FSA prohibited short selling for 32 financial companies.

On September 22, Australia enacted even more extensive measures with a total ban of short selling.

Also on September 22, the Spanish market regulator, CNMV, required investors to notify it of any short positions in financial institutions, if they exceed 0.25% of a company's share capital.

Short sellers were blamed for the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Regulations governing short selling were implemented inthe United States in 1929 and in 1940. Political fallout from the 1929 crash led Congress to enact a law banning short sellers from selling shares during a downtick; this was known as the uptick rule, and was in effect until 2007.

President Herbert Hoover condemned short sellers and even J. Edgar Hoover said he would investigate short sellers for their role in prolonging the Depression.

Legislation introduced in 1940 banned mutual funds from short selling (this law was lifted in 1997).

A few years later, in 1949, Alfred Winslow Jones founded a fund (that was unregulated) that bought stocks while selling other stocks short

hence hedging some of the market risk, and the hedge fund was born.