Quicktake
By
Bloomberg News
With a recovery in Chinese shares beginning to sputter, the government has announced some of the most stringent measures yet to curb the practice of short selling in an effort to support the market.
The country’s market regulator forced investors to put more money aside as surety against short-selling positions, and the country’s biggest stock lender halted the practice of loaning out shares. The measures add to earlier restrictions that have failed to halt the decline. At one point in January, more than $6 trillion had been wiped off the value of Chinese and Hong Kong stocks from their peak in 2021. History shows that clamping down on short selling rarely provides the market with more than a short-term boost.
