저자: 미상 · 외국인
요약 보기
공매도는 시장에 유동성과 가격 발견 기능을 제공하므로 이롭다는 결론. 일론 머스크의 공매도 비판(2012년 옹호 → 최근 '합당한 비난' 주장)을 소개하며, 머스크의 주장은 근거가 약하다고 평가. 공매도의 효과: 매도자 추가로 유동성 증가, 역행 거래로 변동성 완화, 과열 억제 및 사기 기업 적발 등 가격 발견 기여. 시장 참여자 중 주가 하락에서 이익을 보는 쪽은 공매도 세력뿐이라는 점을 짚으며 정부·언론·금융사·경영진은 모두 상승을 선호한다고 설명. 공매도가 루머 유포나 주가 조작에 쓰이면 불법이며, 이 경우 해당 행위는 비난받아야 하지만 실제 오도 사례는 공매도 세력보다 경영진 쪽이 더 많다는 입장. 테슬라 공매도 논거에 대해: 변동성이 큰 종목이라 단기 공매도는 위험하지만, 회계 문제 등 공매도 세력의 문제 제기는 실제 근거가 있을 수 있다고 봄. 진행자 개인적으로는 머스크를 지지하며, 회계 문제가 있더라도 SEC가 그를 내버려두고 지원해야 한다는 견해를 밝힘.
다듬은 글
what's going on investors, 8K from Fallible here, and today we're going to talk all about short sellers. Are they beneficial to the stock market, or are they just immoral haters who ruin everything? As you can guess, I was reminded of this topic by Elon Musk and his crazy tweets lately.
Elon is a little crazy. First he settles with the SEC, and then he decides to go on Twitter and start trash-talking them, sarcastically calling them the "Short Seller Enrichment Commission." No matter who you are and how much money you have, that is a dumb move. Screwing with the SEC is like poking a snake; it's going to bite you. Everybody knows you don't mess with the alphabet boys, the SEC, the IRS. They can make your life so terrible that it's never worth it. Elon is just getting too cocky, thinking he's different. He's making those Bobby Axelrod moves purely out of ego. If you watch *Billions*, you know how much trouble Axe gets himself into, and that's completely avoidable. It's just not necessary. It does make for a great prestige TV show, so I don't mind, but this is real life. You're really going to screw yourself over.
I am empathetic to where he's coming from, though, because Elon gets the worst from short sellers. He's getting beaten down a lot, and I guess when you're finished being mad at those short sellers, you have to move on to a different target. So the SEC thing is scary. But Elon did say something about short sellers too, which was actually kind of funny, because he was responding to his own tweet from 2012. You can see in the progression that he changed his tune. Back then he said, "Even though they caused me grief, I would still defend the rights of shorts to exist. They're often unreasonably maligned." That was 2012. Then recently he said, "The last several years have taught me that they are indeed reasonably maligned." By the way, "maligned" means slandered or defamed, basically means hated on. I did look that word up, because I'm stupid and I thought "maligned" was the same word as "misalign," but it turns out they're different words. Basically, Elon's opinion has changed. Before, he thought short sellers were unreasonably hated on; now he thinks all the hate they get is pretty reasonable, and he even thinks what they do should be illegal. Then Elon had a bunch of other tweets trying to explain why short sellers are bad for markets, which really didn't make much sense. Elon knows how a lot of things work, but in this area he really doesn't.
So overall, is Elon sort of right that short selling is actually bad for the market? No, he's not right. Short sellers provide a lot of benefits for the market.
First, they provide liquidity. What a short seller does is borrow shares and sell them. That's technically adding more sellers into the market, which is good, because when you have a bunch of buyers, they need to buy from somebody. Sellers provide that supply. More buyers and sellers in a market means a more liquid market, which is a more efficient market with better prices, and that's good for everybody.
Second, short sellers reduce volatility. They basically do the opposite of what everyone else is doing. When other people are buying at highs, short sellers are selling at highs. When other people are selling at lows, that's when short sellers are buying again. By counteracting what other investors are doing, they smooth out the peaks and troughs in the market, and you get less volatility because buying and selling are more evenly distributed.
The most important thing short sellers do is aid in price discovery. First, they help curb excessive speculation. When things get way out of value because people keep buying and there's a frenzy, these are the guys coming in to short the stock and bring it back down to its fair value. More than that, they serve as the police of the market, finding companies that are just frauds and full of problems and bringing them down. Short sellers provide the much-needed balance. They're the only ones incentivized by a market actually going down.
Think about the other big players. They're all incentivized by a market going up. The government wants the market to go up, because then politicians get reelected because people are happy. The financial media wants the market to go up, because then more people tune into their services and they make more money. The alternative, when the market is going down, is that people get fed up with the media, don't want anything to do with the stock market, let alone watch something about it. Then you have banks, who are always selling investment products, and they sell more products when the market is going up, so they want to keep pumping it higher. And company management teams obviously want the market going up, because that means their company's stock price is doing better. So short sellers are the only ones incentivized differently, and they help provide that bounce.
It can get bad if short sellers aren't ethical, if they start spreading rumors and trying to purposely manipulate the stock price. That's illegal, and I agree with you there. They're misleading people, and that's not right. But honestly, most of the time it's not short sellers misleading people. It's management.
I already made a video talking about why I think Tesla's a stupid short, which, if you haven't seen it, I'll link above. In that video I said that in practice, personally, I would not short something so volatile, especially because Tesla has so much positive sentiment behind it. Most of the time when you try to short it, you're going to get burned. It just doesn't make sense for your P&L at this point to try it. But the general thesis behind why these guys are shorting Tesla might actually be legit. I don't think they're just spreading rumors like Elon claims. I would not be surprised at all if there's some very illegal accounting going on at Tesla. I'd actually be surprised if there isn't, and I'm sure that's part of why their C-suite rotates so often, especially their CFO. That's not a good sign.
But personally, I would never bet against a guy like Elon, even if he's doing something illegal. Honestly, I don't care. I truly believe in what he says he's doing, which is helping humanity. He's not just some billionaire trying to make more money. If he were, why would he pick such difficult projects? There are a lot easier ways to make money, especially when you're as smart as him. With stuff like the accounting problems, I would honestly look the other way and just support it. I think that's what our government should be doing. You basically have a national treasure in Elon, so why aren't you supporting him 150 percent? In that sense, I get frustrated with the SEC. Leave the guy alone and let him do what he needs to do, because nobody else is doing it. But that's just my opinion.
What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments what you think about short selling, Tesla, and in general. I'll probably respond to all of them. If you liked this video, make sure you subscribe to this channel and hit that bell for a notification of the next one. We publish about three videos a week, all market and business related. So subscribe, and I'll see you in the next video. Stay foolish. Bye.
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