extended ban on short selling

ASIC extend ban on Short Selling
22 Oct 2008


The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has extended the ban on short selling for a further 28 days until 18 November 2008. A road map for lifting of the restrictions and announcement of new regulations has been provided by ASIC:

The ban on short selling of financials will continue until 27 January 2009. For the purposes of Australian market, ASIC has taken a pragmatic approach to the definition of financials as the entities in the S&P/ASX 200 Financial Index (which will include property trusts and five other APRA supervised listed entities not in this index).
ASIC expects to lift the ban on non financials from opening trade on 19 November 2008. ASIC cannot, however, provide greater certainty than that because of the state of the markets. ASIC will, at least three trading days before 18 November 2008, issue a further release on its expectation of lifting the ban on non-financial stocks.
As part of lifting the ban on non-financials, ASIC with ASX have been putting in place disclosure and reporting arrangements that will apply from the time the ban is lifted. These will be announced to the market later this week.
In summary, no changes have been made to the exemptions and facilitations which ASIC has previously granted. All current arrangements will continue.

Impact on CommSec customers:

- Day Short Selling - No new orders will be accepted.
- Term Short Selling - No new orders will be accepted. Clients with open positions can still close out existing positions.
- OTC CFDs - No new "sell to open" orders will be accepted. Clients with open positions can still close out existing positions.
- ETOs - Trading as normal.
- ASX CFDs - Trading as normal.

As ASIC and the ASX release more information regarding the changes to Short Selling we will post additional updates on our website to keep CommSec customers informed.

For further information regarding the ASIC guidelines on short selling please refer to the ASIC website (asic.gov.au)

Download ASIC's response to Short Selling - 23rd September 2008

For more information on the ASIC annoucement on ASX Short Selling, 21 October 2008, Visit the ASIC website

If you would like to view the ASIC Short Selling announcement on 22nd September 2008. Visit the ASIC website