"But this turns out to be dangerous hysteria, disconnected from the trading facts. "

Peston on BBC:

"When the ban on short-selling( ASININE ) was introduced last year, the chancellor basked in the general approbation of this crackdown on financial speculation that was supposedly destroying confidence in our banks.

The impression was created that the Treasury was in part responsible for the prohibition on the practice of borrowing bank shares to sell them (with the speculator hoping to buy them back later at a lower price to trouser the difference).

Which now puts the government in something of a pickle. Because it's very unhappy that the City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, lifted the ban last Friday on these transactions that generate profits from falling share prices.

But ministers can't easily express their disapproval in public - to do so would imply that they didn't really have much say in the imposition of the ban in the first place.

The thing is that the FSA is an independent regulatory body. And at least part of its role is to promote liquid markets that set prices in an efficient way.( YES )

The FSA believes that short-selling enhances the process of setting prices, by capturing the available supply and demand for securities and also relevant information.( I AGREE )

As we surely must now appreciate, as we live with the bitter consequences of the popping of the debt bubble, the euphoric buying of assets by manic investors is highly dangerous - so it can be very helpful that the market contains short-sellers expressing a contrary, negative view.( YES )

So the FSA would only ban short-selling, or any other similar orthodox and longstanding trading practice, when it detected palpable, significant damage to companies or to the economy that outweighed the market benefits.

There was evidence of such damage last spring and summer. A vicious interaction of malicious rumour and speculative sales was devastating bank share prices, and this in turn affected the confidence of banks' creditors and depositors.

When these creditors and depositors withdrew their funds, banks came perilously close to collapse, which transformed the rumours into self-fulfilling propositions.( BUT THE CALLING RUN WAS ENTIRELY SEPARATE )

The ban on short-selling was therefore a circuit-breaker between rumour and the undermining of banks' ability to fund themselves in the wholesale money markets and from retail deposits.

However, since the ban was imposed last autumn, the funding of banks - their borrowing - has become much more stable, thanks to the forced largesse of taxpayers.( YES )

The Treasury has committed around £800bn of taxpayers' money to underpin banks' ability to borrow what they need. A run on a bank that would bring it down is almost impossible today, because banks can secure what they need from us, the taxpayers.( YES )

Which is why the FSA felt comfortable about allowing short-selling to re-commence.

To put it in stark terms, thanks to taxpayers' largesse, short-selling bank stocks is no longer a potentially lethal activity.

Even so, many - including ministers - argue that the FSA was crackers to allow short-selling to start again.

They point to the collapse in the share prices of Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays as evidence that hedge funds and other short-sellers are up to their old tricks of destroying the infrastructure of the British economy for private profit.

There's only one problem with this thesis: it's not supported by the facts.( TRUE )

Since the ban was lifted, there has been a negligible amount of short selling.

And although some will be revolted by the disclosure in this morning's Guardian that Landsdowne has made a few millions in profit from shorting Barclays, it's laughable to think that Landsdowne's miniscule short position could have contributed to the billions wiped off Barclays' value since last Friday.( SILLY )

Most of the share price movements in the big banks have been caused by conventional selling of shares by the normal gamut of investment institutions.( YES )

Some of these investors may have sold because of their conviction that the shorts were selling the stock down to zero. In fact a number have told me precisely that. But this turns out to be dangerous hysteria( YES ), disconnected from the trading facts.

There is an argument that the FSA should have anticipated this irrational depression( TRUE ) on the part of pension funds and others - and should have delayed the lifting of the ban until a bit more common-sense( MAYBE ) returned to the market.

But the main cause of the recent falls in bank shares was the Treasury's massive new package to stimulate lending - which spooked the City for reasons discussed in earlier notes - and a worldwide escalation in fears about the health of banks.( YES )

The short-sellers are the convenient whipping boys, not the prime malefactors (if you think it's a crime that the share prices have fallen, which is moot).

As of now, no irredeemable damage appears to have been done. And although it may jar to say so, shares can rise as well as fall - even bank shares. "

I think that the short selling ban was a mistake, which might have helped calcify the market.