Should naked short selling be illegal? The practice of seeking to profit from an expected fall in the price of an asset by selling shares you do not own without borrowing, or making arrangements to borrow them, is against Securities & Exchange Commission rules in the US and banned in Australia and Hong Kong.

Japan recently extended a ban on naked short selling first introduced in late October to the end of July, and the German financial services regulator did the same to the end of May, although its ban only applies to 11 financial companies.